THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

UCLA  ART  COUNCIL 

BY 

Estate  of 
Anne  Hunter  Temple 


\ 


THE  NATURE  OF  LANDSCAPE 


HTia^  MAlJJiW' 

jrigilrwT 


/ 


William  Keith 

Twilight 


The 
Nature  of  Landscape 

BY 

Samuel  Latta  Kingan 


^^ Beyond  the  methods  of  painting  there  lies  the 
wider  problem  of  the  real  expression  of  art.'' 

Sir  Alfred  East 


PRIVATELY  PRINTED 

1920 


TO  THE 

LANDSCAPE  ARTISTS  OF  AMERICA 

BY  THEIR  SINCERE  ADMIRER 


i'-y  '-.'^ 


/o^^o> 


Note.  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  settled  the 
principles  of  landscape;  much  less  do  I  offer 
this  essay,  fragmentary  as  it  is,  and  anything 
but  complete,  as  a  presentation  of  the  subject. 
I  have  attempted  merely  to  set  forth  some  of 
the  elements  which  have  appealed  to  me  as 
being  foundational,  and  always  indispensable, 
and  this  too,  quite  without  regard  to  the  singu- 
larities of  composition,  or  manner  of  pub- 
lication. If  there  be  little  here  however  of  a 
one  and  unerring  formula,  and  nothing  at  all 
of  craftsmanship,  there  is  something,  I  hope, 
(especially  for  so  inconsiderable  a  production) 
of  the  real  body  and  character  of  the  art,  afid-- 
of-snds  worthy  to  be  achieved. 


CONTENTS 

I.    Feeling,  Fancy  and  Spirit    ...    1 

11.    The  Attendants  Truth  and 

Beauty 41 

III.    The  More  Important  Qualities 

OF  THE  Materials 65 


LIST  OF  PICTURES 
William  Keith 

''Twilighf  Frontispiece 

Leonard  Ochtman 

''Fall  of  the  Leaf" 6 

Gardner  Symons 

''Snow,  Ice  and  Light" 14 

Ben  Foster 

"October  Morning" 22 

Henry  W.  Ranger 

"Edge  of  the  Woods"       28 

William  Ritschel 

"Light  on  the  Sea" 34 

Charles  H.  Davis 

"Clouds"       43 

DWIGHT  W.  TrYON 

"October's  Close" 49 

George  Inness 

"Sunset"        56 

Charles  Melville  Dewey 

"  The  Early  Beams" 64 


Albert  L.  Groll 

''Harbingers  of  Rain" 72 

BiRGE  Harrison 

''Wintef 80 

J.  Francis  Murphy 

'' Hillside  Farm'' 89 

Ernest  Lawson 

"  The  Further  Heights'' 96 


The  plates  are  from  paintings  in  the  writer's 
collection. 


THE  NATURE  OF  LANDSCAPE 


I 


FEELING,  FANCY  AND 
SPIRIT 

I  would  have  you  detach  yourself  from  the 
world,  conceive  of  it  without  you  and  your 
kind,  and  from  some  far  place,  look  down 
into  the  vast. 

Only  the  physical  lies  before  you,  the  ma- 
terial, the  substantial.  Earth  rolls  in  her 
course.  The  land  is  solid  and  fixed,  the  sea 
liquid  and  never  still,  air  sweeps  in  tempests, 
or  is  quiet,  and  the  light  streams  down.  Ob- 
serve more  closely.  The  waters  of  the  seas 
heave  and  swell,  and  then  lie  smooth.  Black 
clouds  hang  over  them,  white  mists  trail  and 
bulge,  and  boundless  stretches  blaze  back  at 
the  sun.  All  of  the  seven  seas  are  before  you, 
lashed  by  storm,  or  at  peace.  From  frozen 
north  to  frozen  south,  it  is  the  same.  The 
land  looms  up,  rocks,  cliffs,  strands,  hills,  val- 
leys, plains,  mountains,  forests,  morasses, 
rivers  and  lakes.  And  over  them  are  the  stars 
and  the  moon  and  the  sun,  and  around  and 
about  them  blows  the  wind.  Observe  more 
closely  still.  In  the  heavens  above  the  sea 
hangs  the  rainbow  with  its  colors.     Light 


[     2     ] 

Strikes  the  clouds,  and  the  blackness  bursts 
into  splendor.  Breakers  roll  on  yellow  shores. 
In  the  forests,  the  light  filters  down,  swims 
in  long,  dim  glades,  and  glimmers  on 
stream  and  pool.  Level  spaces  sweep  to  the 
sky,  and  lakes  lie  deep  among  the  hills.  There 
are  valleys  girt  with  mountains,  blue  and 
violet  and  mauve,  and  rivers  tumbling  over 
precipices.  There  is  the  sunrise  and  the  sun- 
set, on  ocean,  plain  and  mountain,  and  there 
is  the  night.  And,  if  you  look  yet  again,  you 
will  see  what  we  have  called  the  changes  of 
the  seasons,  winter  and  summer,  autumn  and 
spring. 

Such  is  nature,  this  visible  world.  You  have 
seen  all  of  her.  There  is  no  heart  buried  in 
her  granite  hills,  no  mood  lying  in  her  valleys, 
no  soul  on  her  mountain  tops.  She  is  real  and 
palpable.  The  island  is  as  sentient  as  the 
river,  the  wave  as  the  cloud,  the  air  as  the 
light. 

[  But  if  all  be  wholly  physical,  and  the  im- 
press of  the  bigness  of  mountains,  the  roar  of 
winds,  the  greens  of  meadows,  and  the  sump- 
tuousnessof  autumnal  woods,  be  upon  our  phys- 
ical selves,  that  is  to  say,  upon  nature  herself, 
so  that  the  material  is  stamped  upon  the  ma- 


[     3     ] 

terial,  yet  it  does  not  follow,  that  our  contact, 
even  in  the  most  primary  way,  is  altogether 
physical.  If  in  a  larger  sense  we  are  not 
a  part  of  nature,  up  to  our  subtlest  thought, 
differing,  but  co-ordinate  in  the  scheme,  if  we 
are  not  another  bloom  in  her  inexhaustible 
garden,  but  are  in  reality  of  diviner  essence,  still 
the  kinship  is  so  close  as  to  render  complete 
separation  forever  impossible.  When  we  be- 
hold form  and  color,  although  they  know  us 
not,  and  are  of  themselves  of  the  earth,  and 
reach  us  only  through  our  corporeal  frames, 
we  catch  at  the  same  instant,  with  our  emo- 
tional and  intellectual  eyes,  those  deep  sig- 
nificances, which  cannot  be  other,  or  different 

from,  ourselves. J 

When,  in  the  days  we  now  call  primitive,  men 
imitated  an  object,  it  was  not  a  tree,  nor  a  hill, 
nor  a  cloud.  This  was  not  because  of  lack  of  ob- 
servation, nor  yet  of  understanding  altogether, 
but  for  the  reason  in  large  part,  that  nature 
was  considered  as  a  habitation,  rather  than  as 
belonging  to  the  occupants  themselves.  For- 
ests, waters,  and  mountains  were  peopled  with 
creatures  similar  to  man,  but  even  then,  in 
the  very  midst  of  nature,  her  availibility  for 
expression  was  not  recognized— save  perhaps 


[     4     ] 

by  those  inspired  poets  who  from  the  begin- 
ning appear  to  have  divined  the  true  relation- 
ship—and it  was  generally  thought,  that  no 
form  other  than  the  human  could  express 
man.  It  was  a  natural  halting  place,  and  like 
many  another,  long  tarried  at. 

That  art  which  makes  nature,  her  multitu- 
dinous aspects  and  changing  apparitions,  an 
only  end,  is  universally  inferior,  if  indeed,  it 
be  art  at  all.  It  is  not  sufficient  that  art 
should  expose  the  appearance  of  man,  or  of 
his  implements,  or  surroundings;  it  must  be 
of  him.  A  landscape  is  hardly  given  the  hu- 
man touch  by  inserting  a  plow,  a  horse,  or  a 
house.  Trees,  water  and  light,  and  all  the  hosts 
of  nature,  have  art  value,  only  when  there  is 
cast  upon  them,  and  seemingly  into  them,  some 
quality  of  man's  own,  some  insignia  of  relation- 
ship. Not  thatnature  should  be  humanized;  than 
this,  nothing  could  be  more  subversive  or  dis- 
astrous. Emotions,  as  in  truth  they  are,  and 
in  full  individuality,  are  imposed  upon  and 
mingled  with  the  elements  of  nature,  as  in 
truth  they  are,  and  shorn  of  no  single  appur- 
tenance, in  order  that  man  may  find  yet  an- 
other voice,  yet  another  and  wider  range. 

The  contemptuous  attitude  of  many  great 


[     5     ] 

minds  towards  painting  is  easily  understood. 
Pictures  have  been  classed  as  extraordinary, 
chiefly  because  of  flesh  tints,  sheen  of  silk,  the 
light  on  a  haystack,  some  startling  verisimili- 
tude. If  this  be  true,  inevitably  painters 
are  imitators,  transcribers  of  the  real  into  the 
appearance  of  the  real.  Such  was  Hazlitt's 
theory.  How  can  such  an  art  cope  with  poetry 
or  music?  Where  are  those  passions  that 
shake  the  soul,  those  fancies  and  moods  that 
charm  and  soothe,  those  far  and  lofty  flights 
with  'the  gods?  Men  have  small  use  for  im- 
itators and  transcribers.  Had  those  who 
caviled  understood  the  true  object  of  paint- 
ing, their  contempt  would  have  given  way  to 
delight  and  laudation. 

The  arts  of  painting,  literature  and  music 
differ  so  radically  in  their  first  sensuous  im- 
press, that  some  appear  to  be  of  the  opinion 
that  they  are  expressive  of  different  sub- 
stances. As  there  is  but  one  man,  and  one 
set  of  emotions,  and  as  every  art  must  spring 
from  this  common  source,  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  of  the  arts,  except  as  manifestations, 
each  in  its  particular  way,  of  the  same  gener- 
al thing.  The  greater  adaptability  of  certain 
mediums  to  the  expression  of  certain  emo- 


[    6     ] 

tions,  relates  to  manner  and  method  of  utter- 
ance, rather  than  to  the  nature  of  the  utter- 
ance, and  happens  within  the  confines  of  each 
art,  as  well  as  between  the  arts  themselves. 
There  is  but  one  common  font  at  which  the 
whole  world  drinks.  When  poet,  housed,  and 
sequestered,  or  free  in  June  meadows,  tells 
his  tale,  the  wings  that  lift  and  emancipate, 
are  not  the  forms  of  his  verse,  the  cities,  the 
plains,  the  hills,  nor  the  valleys,  not  even  the 
men  and  women,  of  his  fancy.  It  is  the  feel- 
ing and  [the  spirit  of  a  mighty  soul.  The 
musician  too,  in  pouring  forth  those  sounds 
that  reach  deep  into  the  dark  wells  of  the 
hearts  of  men,  relies,  not  on  the  contrivances 
of  his  craft,  not  the  trappings,  the  scenes  of 
Seigfried  and  of  Faust,  but  upon  emotion 
flowing  like  a  river.  The  painter  is  not  a 
mere  depicter  of  the  shell.  His  feet  are  swift 
as  the  poet's;  he  goes  as  far  afield.  He  also 
hears  the  harmonies  that  fill  the  air.  He 
spreads  on  canvas,  not  that  which  others 
have  told  in  words  or  breathed  in  sounds,  for 
to  them  is  their  art,  but  the  same  feeling, 
fancy  and  spirit,  in  different,  and  it  may  be,  in 
less  or  more  befitting  guise.  All  give  the 
means;  you  must  see  for  yourself.    If  you 


Leonard  Ochtman 

Fall  of  the  Leaf 


'/lAMTHOO  xXHAAU^d^ 


af 


^ 


[     7     ] 

cannot  see,  there  is  no  Hamlet,  no  Supper  at 
Emmaus,  no  forlorn  Margarita. 

It  is  common  usage  to  say,  that  the  land- 
scape painter  is  an  interpreter  and  translator 
of  nature,  a  sort  of  gifted  intermediary,  whose 
office  it  is  to  exhibit  the  doings  of  river,  wood 
and  hill,  and  if  not  to  obliterate  himself,  at 
least  to  remain  unseen.  In  the  sense  that  the 
painter  makes  known  existing  facts  in  nature 
which  were  hidden  before,  or  reveals  our 
closer  affinity  with  nature,  he  is  an  interpreter, 
somewhat  as  the  naturalist,  the  scientist,  and 
the  inventor.  But  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  art  to 
disseminate  a  knowledge  of  facts.  The  painter 
of  figure  is  not  concerned  with  anatomy  as 
such;  he  is  not  a  chemist,  nor  a  surgeon.  He 
paints  passions,  not  bodies.  It  is  for  the  land- 
scape painter,  not  merely  to  render  nature  with 
whatever  intimacy  and  power  he  may  attain, 
but  above  all  else,  to  depict  and  expose,  to  in- 
terpret and  translate  man.  If,  in  the  execu- 
tion, nature's  so-called  moods,  and  the  real 
moods  and  emotions  of  men,  appear  as  blended 
into  a  whole,  it  will  be  in  the  main,  because 
the  dominant  human  elements  have  found 
adequate  vesture,  and  not  because  nature  has 
found  utterance  through  human  agency. 


[     8     ] 

In  all  of  nature  there  is  not  a  landscape, 
but  what  an  endless  quantity  and  variety  of 
scenery!  The  difference  between  scenery  and 
landscape,  I  take  it,  is  this:  Scenery  is  the 
real  and  actual  appearance  of  some  part  of  the 
physical  world,  a  forest,  a  plain,  a  reach  of 
water,  or  the  sky.  It  is  nature's  exhibit,  her 
outward  blazonry,  and  no  whit  different  from 
the  muck  on  the  floor  of  seas,  and  the  rock 
supporting  a  continent.  LLandscape  upon  the 
other  hand,  is  the  representation  of  an  emo- 
tion, and  stems  in  man.  A  scene  faithfully 
painted  is  a  statement  of  fact;  a  landscape 
has  no  counterpart  in  fact,  but  is  a  creation, 
designed  and  constructed  to  convey  the  in- 
tangible. There  is  the  difference  between  an 
accurate  description  of  the  reality,  and 

"We  were  the  first  that  ever  burst 
Into  that  silent  sea." 

Let  no  one  suppose  that  I  am  attempting 
to  belittle  nature.  That  were  occupation  for 
a  fool.  What  I  would  emphasize  is,  that  na- 
ture, always,  everywhere,  is  physical;  that 
art,  always,  whatever  its  form,  and  however 
closely  knit  into  the  material,   partakes  of 


[     9     ] 

mentality,  and  is  valuable  only  to  the  extent 
of  the  artist's  power  and  vision. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  most  men  are  im- 
pressed with  or  by  nature  save  in  a  material 
way,  and  pretty  much  in  the  same  manner  as 
other  animals;  yet  an  oak,  magnificent  in 
reach  and  verdure,  a  plain  rolling  to  the 
verge,  a  cloud  on  a  mountain  side,  a  little 
blue  flower  in  the  shade  of  a  dell,  will  call 
from  many  of  them,  some  kind  of  a  response. 
It  is  this  answer,  this  awakening,  however 
feeble,  that  gives  wherewithal!  to  hang  an  art. 
The  painter  avails  himself  of  oak,  or  plain,  or 
cloud,  or  flower,  not  to  reproduce  it,  and  thus 
arouse  the  same  sentiment  as  the  original, 
diminished  as  in  the  nature  of  things  it  must 
be,  but  that  he  may,  having  some  foundation, 
and  avenue  of  communication,  burgeon  out 
with  strength  and  beauty  the  primary  emo- 
tion. It  is  for  him,  through  knowledge,  and 
by  labor,  and  the  use  of  those  faculties  by 
right  of  which  he  may  be  called  artist,  to 
clothe  the  emotion  anew,  to  divine  the  form 
and  the  color  that  will  best  display  it,  to  im- 
bue fact  with  fancy,  sounds  with  symphony, 
light  and  air  and  soil,  with  joy,  or  peace,  or 
hope,  or  serenity,  the  final  and  supreme  qual- 


[    10    ] 

ities.  Thus  the  visible  and  familiar  may  be 
made  to  carry  the  invisible  and  not  always 
familar;  the  scene  be  transmuted  into  land- 
scape. I 

Nor  is  landscape,  as  has  been  indicated, 
confined  to  color  and  line.  The  very  feel  of 
a  noble  and  powerful  picture  may  be  con- 
veyed by  words  or  music.  Pictoric  form 
is  not  of  the  essence,  but  only  one  of 
the  methods  of  expression.  If  we  may  con- 
ceive of  an  artist  ambidextrous  with  pen, 
brush,  and  musical  instrument,  the  mood  pro- 
duced by  writing,  picture  or  melody,  of  the 
same  subject,  would  be  similar.  Consider  this 
familiar  passage: 

"Perhaps  there  is  no  more  impressive  scene 
on  earth  than  the  solitary  extent  of  the  Cam- 
pagna  of  Rome  under  evening  light.  Let  the 
reader  imagine  himself  for  a  moment  with- 
drawn from  the  sounds  and  motion  of  the  liv- 
ing world,  and  sent  forth  alone  into  this  wild 
and  wasted  plain.  The  earth  yields  and  crum- 
bles beneath  his  foot,  tread  he  never  so  light- 
ly, for  its  substance  is  white,  hollow  and  cari- 
ous, like  the  dusty  wreck  of  the  bones  of  men. 
The  long  knotted  grass  waves  and  tosses  fee- 
bly in  the  evening  wind,  and  the  shadows  of  its 


[  11  ] 

motion  shake  feverishly  along  the  banks  of 
ruin  that  lift  themselves  to  the  sunlight. 
Hillocks  of  mouldering  earth  heave  around 
him,  as  if  the  dead  beneath  were  struggling 
in  their  sleep;  scattered  blocks  of  black  stone, 
four-square,  remnants  of  mighty  edifices,  not 
one  left  upon  another,  lie  upon  them  to  keep 
them  dov^n.  A  dull  purple  poisonous  haze 
stretches  level  along  the  desert,  veiling  its 
spectral  wrecks  of  massy  ruins,  on  whose 
rents  the  red  light  rests,  like  a  dying  fire  on 
defiled  altars.  The  blue  ridge  of  the  Alban 
Mount  lifts  itself  against  a  solemn  space  of 
green,  clear,  quiet  sky.  Watch-towers  of  dark 
clouds  stand  steadfastly  along  the  promon- 
tories of  the  Appennines.  From  the  plain 
to  the  mountains,  the  shattered  aqueducts, 
pier  beyond  pier,  melt  into  the  darkness, 
like  shadovv^  and  countless  troops  of  funeral 
mourners,  passing  from  a  nation's  grave." 

I  am  not  so  certain  that  our  progenitors, 
those  very  early  men,  for  all  their  ignorance, 
lack  of  subjectiveness,  and  helplessness  with 
the  abstract,  and  those  too,  whom  we  now 
call  the  ancients,  did  not  have,  in  some  re- 
spects, a  truer  conception  of  nature,  than  we 
of  today.    Many  of  us  like  the  show  of  her. 


[    12    ] 

the  delicateness  and  the  softness.  We  fall  into 
raptures  over  fields  of  flowers,  brooks,  birds, 
tree-forms,  and  that  sort  of  thing;  but  the 
power,  often  malign  and  terrible,  the  deep 
elemental  forces,  the  gaunt,  the  haggard  and 
foreboding,  seem  to  impress  us  lightly.  We 
are  not  to  forget  that  the  great  gods  of 
heathendom,  with  sway  over  earth,  had  their 
origin  whatever  their  attributes  in  later  days, 
in  man's  attempt  to  escape  from  and  survive 
the  thing;  that  waters  have  ever  devastated 
and  destroyed,  winds  crushed  and  destroyed, 
heat  and  cold  blasted  and  destroyed,  vol- 
canoes spewed  over  plains,  earthquakes  rend- 
ed  and  destroyed;  that  man  crouched  and 
was  afraid,  when  the  physical,  like  some  great 
ogre,  pounced  on  him;  that  he  could  not 
match  strength  with  strength,  toss  mountains 
into  sea,  or  swallow  rivers  at  a  gulp;  that  in 
the  power  of  the  thing,  he  as  a  thing  was 
puny  and  grotesque,  and  that,  whether  driven 
from  Eden  mature  and  lusty,  or  evolved  from 
slime  into  form  and  stature,  earth  has  been  bit- 
ter in  his  mouth,  and  he  has  run  his  race  in 
fear  and  trembling. 

Of  those  impenetrable  ages  lying  beyond 
the  edge  of  time,  at  least  we  know,  that  na- 


[    13    ] 

ture  then  and  now  is  the  same,  that  every- 
thing that  has  been,  everlastingly  is.  From 
the  time  the  stars  were  hung  in  the  heavens, 
and  the  flames  of  the  sun  first  kindled,  there 
has  been  no  deviation,  even  though  oceans 
have  dried  up,  and  worlds  have  shrivelled  and 
died.  Ceaselessly  image  changes  to  image, 
but  there  is  not  one  less  nor  one  more  atom 
in  the  universe  today  than  in  the  beginning, 
and  atoms  to  start  with,  they  are  atoms  still. 
Nature  began  with  rocks,  and  water  and  trees 
and  air  and  light,  or  the  things  that  compose 
them,  and  she  will  end  with  them,  or  the 
things  that  compose  them.  Time  was  old 
when  men  learned,  that  beyond  the  fangs,  the 
face  was  not  always  malevolent.  Before  their 
startled  eyes  must  have  loomed  continually 
their  inexorable  fate— not  the  kindly  fate  of 
the  flower  or  tree,  slowly  sinking  back  into 
the  loam,  but  the  fate  of  the  smitten,  the 
crushed,  the  overwhelmed,  and  also  of  the 
lacerated,  the  disemboweled,  and  devoured. 
For  men  were  cruel  as  nature,  and  following 
her  teaching,  fed  upon  themselves.  No  sun- 
set then,  no  rainbow  pulsing  in  the  blue,  no 
night  of  stars  or  flushing  dawn,  awoke  delight 
in  their  fierce  and  sombre  hearts. 


[    14    ] 

One  who  has  not  pushed  into  far  wilder- 
nesses, who  has  not  lost  himself  in  the  depths 
of  great  forests,  who  has  not  clambered  over 
mountains  and  felt  their  roughness,  and  fallen 
headlong  to  stop  at  a  precipice;  who  has  not 
felt  the  waters  of  ocean  close  over  his  head, 
or  the  bruise  of  breakers  on  the  rocks;  who 
has  not  crawled  over  desert  sands  and  felt  his 
very  blood  dry  up;  who  has  not  seen  the 
lightning  strike  before  him  and  the  tall  pine 
shattered  into  fragments,  or  seen  the  hurricane 
smash  its  way;  who  has  not  been  carried  by  rac- 
ing stream  to  cataract  or  whirpool;  who  has 
not  felt  the  wring  of  nature  at  his  throat,  can 
have  but  a  dim  conception  of  man's  struggle. 
Consider  also  his  nakedness,  his  vulnerability, 
the  little  thrust  that  spills  his  blood,  the  little 
blow  that  stops  his  breathing. 

We,  on  the  hither  side  of  things,  look  back, 
and  vaguely  remember.  We  behold  the  fall- 
ing night,  and  high  on  a  slope,  the  cliff  that 
sheltered  us;  we  remember  looking  over  the 
waste  to  the  far  black  ranges  against  the 
sky,  and  the  terrors  of  closing  darkness;  we 
remember  the  deep  tangled  forests,  and  how 
we  wandered  there,  and  fought  with  the 
beasts,  and   the   tempests   that  rocked  the 


Gardner  Symons 
Snow,  Ice  and  Light 


rJH0MY8  HHUGHAO 
id^ivl  hrrn  o')T   v/onr! 


[    15    ] 

earth,  and  how  we  scurried  into  hollow  trees, 
or  under  some  bank,  or  into  a  den,  and  hud- 
dled together;  we  remember  the  shoreless 
swamps,  and  the  creatures  there,  and  how 
they  swooped  upon  us  from  out  of  the  sky 
and  seized  us  unawares;  we  remember  the 
rivers  grown  up  with  trees  like  grass,  and  the 
brutes  they  harbored,  and  how  they  dragged 
us  down  and  away;  we  remember  the  endless 
rains,  the  gloomy  swollen  skies,  and  the 
hunger,  and  we  remember  the  sea  reaching 
out  to  suck  us  back.  And  the  nights  of  fire 
and  flame,  when  the  earth  fell  away,  and 
mountains  toppled  into  valleys,  we  remember 
them;  and  the  long,  long  time  of  ice  and 
snow,  with  its  numbing  misery,  we  remember 
that.  And  we  remember  a  later  day,  when  it 
was  warm,  and  dappled  over  with  sunlight, 
we  lay  stretched  under  trees,  and  the  delight 
of  it;  and  of  other  times,  when  the  silvery 
mists  of  morning  made  us  smile,  or  the  rich 
glow  of  sunset  caught  our  eye  and  charmed 
us,  or  the  moon  soothed  and  quieted  us,  or 
the  wide  rippling  savannahs  seemed  to  lift  us, 
and  the  winds  brought  us  melodies.  He 
who  would  understand,  must  forever  sleep  on 
the  earth,  forever  hear  the  winds  sough  in  the 


[    16    ] 

trees,  forever  see  the  young  moon  curve  be- 
yond the  hills,  forever  remember  the  past  and 
the  meaning  of  it,  regardless  of  the  palace  he 
dv^ells  in,  and  the  fine  raiment  on  his  back. 

Often  on  some  high  and  airy  place,  I  have 
watched  the  gray  clouds,  rampart  upon  ram- 
part, streamers  and  banners,  driven  by  the 
tempestuous  winds  of  the  mountains;  and 
often  I  have  lain  under  a  mesquite  tree  and 
looked  through  the  thin,  trembling  leaves, 
at  the  low-hung  stars  of  the  desert  night. 
And  I  have  closed  my  eyes,  and  with  lids 
tight  looked  again,  and  beheld  other  sights 
my  eyes  had  never  told  me  of. 

Land,  Sea  and  Sky!  Beholding  them  we  are 
lost  in  adoration;  feeling  them  we  are  bowed 
with  reverence.  Fortunate  in  time,  we  have 
escaped  in  part  the  bondage  of  our  forbears, 
and  look  forth  with  the  gladness  of  freedom. 
Gold  of  sun  on  mountain  side,  sweep  of  far 
gray  waters,  sky  blue  from  rim  to  rim,  or 
worked  with  star  and  cloud,  how  amazingly 
wonderful !  Gloriously  are  we  set  in  the  bosom 
of  this  world.  The  filthy  Hottentot,  grovel- 
ling in  wood  or  desert,  can  he  behold  the 
Acropolian  hill  or  Zeus  in  Olympus?  With 
every  babe  is  bom  a  world  different  from  all 


[  n  ] 

other  worlds,  and  to  no  mortal  is  it  given  to 
gaze  beyond  the  horizon  of  his  own  soul.  The 
most  beautiful  spirit,  will  have  the  most 
beautiful  of  worlds. 

Narrow  indeed  is  the  path  we  tread.  Con- 
tinents rear  their  crests,  and  swing  their  en- 
compassing shores;  islands  loom  in  tropic  and 

ft 

snow;  oceans  roll  everywhere;  suns,  moons 
and  stars  are  as  dust  for  numbers.  To  roam 
for  a  century,  were  to  gather  knowledge  of 
the  actual  all,  as  a  pin  point  in  night's  im- 
measurable dome.  Our  sight  is  pale,  our 
vision  short,  we  grasp  but  a  twig  of  the  tree. 
He  who  would  see  nature  with  truth  of 
fact,  her  absolutism,  who  would  see  the  thing, 
and  not  the  result  or  effect  of  the  thing  upon 
himself,  nor  the  connecting  tie,  must  cast 
away  his  heart  and  soul,  and  sink  to  a  cold 
intelligence.  No  man  can  quite  do  this,  how- 
ever vapid  his  temperament,  or  overwhelming 
his  mentality;  but  there  are  those  who,  with 
yardstick  and  scales,  measure  the  lights  of 
day  and  night,  and  all  the  shifting  scenes, 
weigh  the  pearly  clouds,  and  the  throbbing 
colors,  set  all  down  precisely  in  book  or  on 
canvas,  and  call  their  work  complete.  He  who 
would  see  nature  with  truth  of  spirit,  wide 


[    18    ] 

must  he  fling  the  reins  of  his  passions.  Above 
all  he  must  love  earth,  or  what  appears  to  him 
to  be  earth,  with  all  his  heart  and  all  his  soul. 
I  speak  of  love  of  mountains,  of  forests,  of 
deserts,  of  rivers,  of  the  sea,  of  the  sky,  of  a 
love  melting  and  absorbing.  He  must  live 
the  dawn,  live  the  white  noon,  live  sunset  and 
moonrise,  live  autumn  in  the  hills  and  spring- 
time in  the  valleys,  he  must  make  them  essence 
of  his  essence,  core  of  his  core.  Without  this 
basal,  ultimate  and  superlative  power,  the  pow- 
er to  envelope,  we  might  almost  say  permeate, 
matter  with  emotion,  landscape  is  impossible. 
Of  perishable  things,  the  firm  and  defined 
are  most  perishable,  and  only  the  seemingly 
formless  endures.  Heights  are  washed  and 
blown  into  valleys,  rivers  change  their  course, 
plains  are  heaved  into  precipices,  forests 
wither  up.  But  the  air  remains,  and  heat 
and  cold  and  light,  formless  and  immutable. 
Of  man  and  his  works,  only  his  ideas  and  emo- 
tions, comparatively  void  of  shape  and  sub- 
stance, have  perpetuity.  Shall  art  ape  the 
perishable,  as  an  end  and  consummation, 
smirk  over  a  painted  tree,  or  a  painted  nude, 
or  shall  it  mount  the  rarer  altitudes,  and 
breathe  forth  the  everlasting?   Like  some  lorn 


[    19    ] 

creature  in  a  wood,  we  are  enmeshed  and  en- 
tangled in  form.  From  cradle  to  grave  we 
blunder  through  the  maze,  form  jostling  form, 
only  to  sink  into  the  pit.  Saddest  of  all,  we 
sometimes  elevate  the  thing  that  has  be- 
fuddled us,  and  worship  as  Israelites  of  old 
their  calf.  Strange  would  it  be,  if  the  spirit 
of  man,  radiant  and  boundless,  should  be  con- 
tent with  curve  or  angle  of  line,  or  satisfied 
with  any  combination  of  lines.  It  is  not  true. 
Nobler  art  always  has  been,  and  always  will 
be  concerned,  as  the  ultimate  attainment, 
with  the  formless,  ever-living  elements.  As 
with  stones,  you  may  build  a  temple  of  form, 
but  the  deity  of  that  temple,  without  which  it 
were  never  built,  will  be  formless. 

[But  we  see  the  intangible  only  through  the 
tangible,  the  invisible  only  by  means  of  the 
visible.  Without  the  real  there  can  be  no 
imagination,  and  our  vision  of  the  real,  not 
merely  colors,  but  enters  the  structure  of  the 
imaginative.  We  must  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning, and  that  is  the  common  ground  of  form, 
known  to  men]  Although  we  see  differently  as 
individuals,  as  nations  and  races  we  see  much 
alike.  This  common  vision  of  the  physical, 
the  more  or  less  general  view  of  things,  is  the 


[    20    ] 

foundation  of  art.  Fresh  and  new  visions 
concerning  old  things,  do  not  in  anywise 
change  the  old  things  themselves.  Classic 
trees  and  Greek  marbles,  have  not  changed 
mankind's  conception  of  trees,  or  the  human 
form,  however  much  they  may  have  added 
to  ideality  and  esthetic  pleasure.  The  com- 
mon conception  will  always  prevail,  the  dead 
level  of  fact,  known  and  accepted,  and  it  is 
not  art's  business  to  change  it,  but  to  adopt  it 
as  a  base.  Every  work  of  art  partakes  of  the 
commonplace,  has  in  it  some  constituents 
known  to  most  men.  Not  only  is  this  the 
case  with  material  objects,  but  with  the  emo- 
tions as  well.  ^Artists  do  not  deal  with  a 
world,  either  of  fact  or  fancy,  different  from 
the  world  of  other  men.  It  is  this  world  they 
see,  man's  universal  passions  that  stir  them. 
They  are  men  among  men;  not  foreign  crea- 
tures strangely  endowed.  They  may  see 
more  clearly,  but  not  different  things,  they 
may  feel  more  deeply,  but  not  different  pas- 
sions, they  may  speak  more  appealingly,  but 
not  a  different  language. 

The  temples  of  Egypt,  the  Parthenon,  the 
Duomo  of  Milan,  the  Psalms  of  David,  the 
Gioconda,  Hamlet  and  Don  Quixote,  are  one 


[    21    ] 

and  all,  but  arrangements  and  re-arrange- 
ments of  the  frequent  and  familiar,  effects 
moulded  and  evolved  out  of  the  known  and 
understood.  Obviously,  the  position  of  a 
thing  in  relation  to  the  position  of  other 
things,  before,  behind  and  around  it,  makes 
or  mars  not  only  it  but  the  whole.  The 
place  of  the  ordinary  may  make  it  extraor- 
dinary. The  granite  of  mountain  pinnacles 
is  not  different  from  the  granite  of  valleys, 
but  it  startles  by  its  loftiness;  and  many  a 
line  and  many  a  stroke,  owe  their  greatness  to 
place  alone.  Cluster  of  words  of  Milton  or 
Keats,  constellation  of  notes  of  Chopin  or 
Beethoven,  groupings  of  form  and  assem- 
blings of  color  of  Inness  or  Turner,  what  are 
they  all,  but  the  marshalling  of  the  known, 
schemes,  designs  and  patterns  of  the  com- 
mon, blazoned  out  anew?  The  ideas  expressed 
by  means  of  art,  are  vastly  different  from  art 
itself,  although  confusedly  we  call  them  by 
that  name.  The  arts  are  only  handmaidens, 
running  hither  and  yon,  but  the  queen  who 
rules  sits  in  her  power.  Should  we  give  the 
word  the  larger  significance,  and  as  compre- 
hending idea  as  well  as  expression,  still  the 
rule  holds  good,  for  never  has  artistic  con- 


[    22    ] 

ception  illumined  the  mind,  that  was  not 
composed  and  arranged  out  of  the  universal 
passions.  Even  he,  the  topmost  dramatic 
figure  of  the  world,  but  held  up  men,  that 
they  might  behold  themselves.' 

The  approach  to  the  external  world,  rutted 
deep  by  millions  of  feet,  would  seem  easy 
enough  to  any  but  the  blind;  but  paradox  of 
paradoxes,  where  the  simple  and  unlearned 
go  straight  to  the  goal,  the  skillful  and  pro- 
ficient often  stumble  and  fall.  A  curse  of 
the  artistic  is  the  inability  to  grasp  the  real, 
as  if  art  were  some  dilettante,  afraid  or 
ashamed  to  thrust  hands  into  wholesome 
mud  of  reality.  No  artist  distorts  fact.  He 
looks  with  a  sane  and  normal  eye,  with  de- 
sire to  see  the  thing  as  it  is,  to  realize  and 
know  it,  make  it  essentially  his.  Although  he 
have  the  imagination  of  a  god,  he  will  lock 
fast  the  starry  vault,  and  hand  in  hand  with 
his  comrades,  walk  the  beaten,  dusty  way. 
Well  he  knows,  that  he  must  see  as  they  see, 
before  they  can  see  as  he  does.  And  in  his 
vision,  when  like  a  dawn  he  spreads  it  forth, 
however  lit  and  brilliant,  however  vivified  and 
astir  with  soul  it  may  be,  things  of  earth  will 
still  be  earthy,menwillbemen,and  rocks  rocks. 


Ben  Foster 
October  Morning 


H3T80H  una 
gnimoM  isdoloO 


[    23    ] 

Nor  should  the  vision  of  the  actual  be  con- 
cerned alone  with  those  aspects  of  nature 
which  please  us  most.  Nature  is  a  whole, 
an  indissoluble  unit.  He  who  would  have 
some  glimpse  and  sense  of  her,  who  would 
swing  out  of  his  orbit  into  hers,  who  would  be  in 
accord  and  at  one  with  her,  must  crawl  into  her 
dark  and  noisome  caves,  bathe  in  the  very 
slime  of  her,  as  well  as  bask  in  the  sun,  or 
revel  under  the  moon.  Nor  is  that  vision  of 
the  delicate  or  gossamer,  of  mist  on  moun- 
tain side,  of  slanting  light  on  far  flung  field, 
of  opalescent  glint  of  wave,  of  any  higher  or 
different  order,  than  the  vision  of  the  rough 
and  harsh,  a  rocky  isle,  a  dead  tree,  or  a 
festering  swamp.  How  absurd,  to  attribute 
the  spiritual  to  water  in  a  cloud,  and  deny  it 
to  the  muddy  pool  in  the  highway. 

To  see  form  and  color,  texture  and  bulk, 
height  and  depth,  distance  and  perspective, 
atmosphere  and  light,  to  grasp  somewhat  of 
them,  is  but  the  primary  step,  the  alphabet  of 
landscape.  Earth  divorced  of  man,  resplendent 
in  sun  or  swooned  in  night,  is  naught  but  a 
mass  in  the  void.  No  rhapsodizing  can  place 
in  nature's  nostrils  any  breath  but  her  own, 
no  sentimentalizing  can   give  her  qualities 


[    24    ] 


other  than  the  fixed  and  solid  attributes  of 
matter.  What  would  they  have,  they  who  de- 
mand that  landscape  should  have  none  of 
man,  none  of  his  personality,  that  it  should 
be  wholly  nature?  Would  they  have  feeling, 
where  in  nature  will  they  find  it?  Would  they 
have  imagination,  where  in  nature  does  it 
dwell?  Would  they  have  spirit,  where  in  na- 
ture does  it  spread  its  glistening  wings? 

Man,  having  wandered  in  the  forests  and 
over  the  plains,  having  seen  the  stars  go  their 
ways,  and  the  tides  roll  up  and  back,  having 
felt  the  winds  stir  around  him,  and  drenched 
himself  in  the  sun,  having  sensed  the  colors 
of  day  and  night  and  searched  out  the  dim, 
misty  places,  finds  awakening  in  him  a  pro- 
found passion  for  the  scene  of  his  pilgrimage. 
He  hails  the  rising  sun  with  upthrown  arms 
and  a  shout  of  joy,  he  dallies  in  brooks  and 
laughs  with  them,  he  lies  under  trees  and 
communes  with  the  leaves,  he  rolls  in  mead- 
ows, he  would  embrace  the  light  of  noon, 
mountains  are  his  familiars,  and  the  sea  is 
his  brother.  Marvelous  transformation!  A 
soaring  and  effulgent  soul,  encarnadines  a 
world.  He  sees  generously,  broadly,  with  a 
swooping  wholeness,  and  with  a  richness  and 


[    25    ] 

warmth  beyond  all  calculation.  He  gathers 
the  stars  with  the  ease  of  apples  on  trees,  and 
when  he  lies  down  on  mountain  slope,  or  in 
hidden  valley,  his  upturned  gaze  captures  the 
infinite.  Quickened  and  enraptured,  he  be- 
holds anew.  From  the  springboard  of  fact, 
he  leaps  into  the  midair  of  fancy. 

Contentment  with  nature  were  the  death  of 
art.  In  such  a  case,  the  sovereign  power,  in- 
stead of  a  brightness  to  worship  and  to  won- 
der at,  would  never  mount  its  throne.  No 
significant  art  has  been  created  in  the  pres- 
ence of,  or  under  the  direct  influence  of  na- 
ture. To  create,  requires  an  isolation,  a 
separation  and  a  detachment,  from  the  ma- 
terial worked  with.  The  market  inn  is  an 
excellent  place  to  meet  friends,  and  pass  the 
time  of  day,  and  so  is  a  battlefield,  if  you 
would  see  blood  spurt  and  legs  carried  off  by 
cannon;  but  if  it  be  a  comedy  of  ale  and 
humor  and  small  talk,  or  a  battle  hymn,  you 
would  have,  then  the  closet  must  bring  it  forth. 
How  arose  the  belief  that  the  dramatist,  who 
burrows  deepest  in  men's  natures,  and  the 
poet,  who  walks  the  furtherest  promontories 
of  knowledge,  must  hide  themselves  away, 
far  from  men  and  sounds  and  scenes  of  earth, 


[    26    ] 

to  dramatize  or  poetize  or  compose;  but  that 
the  painter  must  be  always  within  sight  or 
touch  of  his  subject? -Is  it  more  difficult  to 
paint  a  tree  than  a  soul?  If  it  be  advanced 
that  the  arts  are  dissimilar,  that  the  one  deals 
with  the  tangible  and  the  others  with  the  in- 
tangible, may  it  not  be  answered,  that  words 
are  as  intractible  as  paint,  that  both  are  but 
tools  of  the  trade,  inductile  and  finite;  that  it 
is  not  more  difficult  to  remember  and  to 
know  the  scenes  of  nature,  than  to  remember 
and  to  know,  the  country  of  the  heart?  Aside 
from  the  performance  of  art,  the  gesture  of  it 
so  to  speak,  is  there  any  difference  in  art? 
Why  should  the  painter  gaze  upon  a  moun- 
tain to  paint  a  mountain,  or  a  sunset  to  paint 
a  sunset,  any  more  than  a  dramatist  upon  the 
bare  bones  of  actual  woe,  to  write  tragedy? 
Is  one  tied  to  the  physical  more  than  the 
other?  What  is  the  attempt  and  adventure? 
One  moves  about  his  men  and  women,  the 
other  his  clouds,  and  lights  and  colors ;  but  with 
each,  it  is  all  a  show  and  make  believe,  mere 
craft  and  cunning,  to  body  out  the  real  drama 
and  the  real  picture.  If  artistry  be  raised  to 
creation,  men  and  women,  cloud,  light  and 
color,  alike,  are  swept  away,  and  the  oblivious 


[    27    ] 

Spectator,  carried  as  by  a  tide,  into  the  ocean 
of  feeling.  Your  true  painter  is  one  who 
garners  the  aspects  and  effects  of  nature, 
stores  them  away  as  so  much  treasure,  pre- 
cious paraphernalia  of  his  craft,  to  await  the 
day  when  he  shall  have  need  of  them.  That 
day  will  not  find  him  in  field  or  on  hill. 

It  was  John  Burnett  who  said,  in  that  old 
book  of  his,  after  writing  of  measurement, 
form,  perspective,  lines,  diminution,  angles, 
circles,  and  chiaro  oscuro:  "Invention  is  the 
great  soul  of  painting,  without  which  the  be- 
ing in  possesion  of  an  accumulation  of  studies, 
is  of  little  avail."  To  imagine,  is  more  than 
to  remember.  Go  out  into  the  midst  of  the 
desert.  The  sun  is  just  gone,  and  the  plains 
of  the  valley,  vague  and  empurpled,  swell 
softly  to  the  encircling  ranges.  The  higher  air 
shot  with  gold  and  crimson,  is  a  mist  of  radi- 
ance, while  in  all  the  middle  space,  a  pale 
light  drops,  that  fades  as  it  falls.  The  ragged 
eastern  peaks,  rose  and  pink,  blur  into  mauve, 
and  then  of  a  sudden  all  is  gone,  and  the  stars 
are  shining.  Enter  a  forest  in  autumn,  and 
stand  by  a  leaf-choked  brook.  The  long 
naked  boughs  of  oaks  reach  out  level  with 
the  gray  and  yellow  earth;  the  slender  sassa- 


[    28    ] 

fras  spreads  its  fanlike  branches  splashed 
with  blood-red  leaves;  the  hazels,  bare  and 
brown,  have  caught  in  their  maze,  yellow 
leaves  of  pappaw  and  buckeye.  There  are 
dead  flower  stalks  in  the  open  places,  and 
glints  of  green  where  the  wind  has  blown  the 
leaves  from  the  moss.  A  midmorning  sun, 
smouldering  and  remote,  casts  a  tawny  light 
which  is  not  so  much  light  as  a  diffusion  and 
rarefaction  of  colors,  that  swims  among  the 
tree  trunks.  Clamber  over  the  rocks  by  the 
sea,  and  at  some  frothy  inlet,  watch  the 
waves  mount  into  foam  and  run  blindly 
along  the  walls  of  the  inner  caverns.  Fogs 
trail  from  far  distances,  and  heave  and  swell 
like  great  dim  sails.  Spots  and  bars  and 
blotches  of  a  lighter  gray  appear,  lost  children 
of  the  sun.  All  passes,  and  there  is  the 
sparkling  blue,  the  tufts  of  white,  the  shower- 
ing splendor  of  a  summer  noon.  These,  with 
innumerable  other  scenes,  familiar  and  dear, 
crowd  our  memories,  hang  on  the  walls  of 
past  times,  until  it  may  be,  on  some  fair  day, 
we  turn  about  upon  ourselves,  and  instead  of 
seeing  and  then  feeling  and  later  on  remem- 
bering, we  feel  first,  find  the  light  within,  no 
longer  remember  but  conceive,  throw  out  and 


V 


Henry  W.  Ranger 

Edge  of  the  Woods 


ibooW  arit  "to  9^b3 


[    29    ] 

off,  rather  than  take  on  and  in,  and  hence 
away  into  deserts  and  forests  and  by  sound- 
ing seas,  never  visioned  by  mortal  eye 

The  artistic  imagination  has  its  origin  in 
feeling,  and  bursts  from  it  as  lightning  from 
clouds.  It  is  inherent  in  this  faculty,  that  it 
adds  truth  to  truth,  not  truth  to  falseness 
The  aggregate  perfectness,  the  ideal  of  indi- 
vidual and  nation,  is  superimposed  upon  the 
verity  of  fact.  The  diseased  and  freakish 
fancy  that  sees  or  pretends  to  see  nature, 
wild  and  disordered,  exaggerated  and  mis- 
matched, is  neither  fish,  flesh  nor  fowl.  Bet- 
ter a  thousand  times  plain  transcriptions  of 
nature,  which  at  least  are  honest  and  whole- 
some, than  monstrosities  that  contain  neither 
truth  of  fact,  nor  truth  of  spirit.  What  ra- 
tional being  would  change  the  color  and  form 
of  flowers,  or  of  trees,  or  mountains,  or  mead- 
ows, or  of  the  sea,  or  dawn  of  day?  Is  not 
the  sunlight  of  earth  bright  enough,  are  not 
the  plains  wide  enough,  the  cliffs  high  enough, 
the  deep,  dark  forests  mysterious  enough, 
for  any  vision?  ^^'^bo,  of  all  the  poets,  has 
found  it  necessary  to  create  a  new  language, 
or  to  maltreat  an  old  one,  to  express  himself? 
On  the  contrary,  the  artist  has  accepted  the 


.      [    30    ] 

tongue  of  his  people,  and  given  it  dignity  and 
nobility.     Poor,   trembling,    outcast    things, 
weak  common  everyday  things,  by  reason  of 
love  and  understanding,   if  not  veneration, 
have  been  vitalized  and  empowered,  and  the 
more  commanding  objects  touched  with  sub- 
limity.     It  is  thus  imagination  lights    her 
fires.    In  landscape,  whether  consciously  or 
not,  there  is  always  the  vista  of  this  broad 
and  fruitful  earth.   As  on  a  plain  it  is  spread, 
and  the  charmed  wanderer  in  rustling  grove 
and  by  sunny  stream,  wants  no  lovelier  sur- 
roundings. Was  ever  so  magnificenta  language? 
To  learn  it  is  to  love  it,  and  to  love  it  is  to  be 
inspired.     Imagination  is  the  lamp  of  the 
passions     Not  only  does  it  give  cohesion  and 
presentation  to  the  particular  emotion,  but  it 
bears  up,  sustains  and  carries  on  the  theme 
to  a  speaking  and  dramatic  end.  It  works  to  a 
certain  consummation,  a  foreseen  and  calculat- 
ed effect,  and  its  supreme  quality,  as  has  been 
said,  is  to  display  the  emotions,  in  progress  and 
along  their  gusty  ways,  and  at  last  in  a  strik- 
ing conclusion.     It  plays  upon  nature  as  light 
upon  water,  but  its  bright,  shooting  beamS^ 
are  from  another  sun.     By  its  singleness  of 
motive  and  rareity  of  construction,  it  pro- 


[    31    ] 

duces  a  new  appearance,  an  appearance  of 
life,  and  harmony  of  soul-the  feeling  that 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  it  all  It  enables  man 
to  project  himself,  initially  by  schooling  and 
arraying  his  emotions,  and  ultimately  by 
burgeoning  them  forth.  This  accomplished, 
imagination  has  served  its  purpose,  for  al- 
though both  frame  and  covering,  it  is  the 
former  rather  than  the  latter. 

The  conception  of  a  work  of  art  is  frequent- 
ly more  toilsome  than  its  execution.  There 
have  been  instances,  to  be  sure,  where  the 
entire  design  was  flashed  by  the  imagination, 
but  they  are  exceptional.  Faint  as  a  star  ray 
struggling  earthward  out  of  the  depths  of 
night,  may  be  the  first  glimmer  of  some  de- 
tail or  part  of  a  masterpiece.  In  his  exuber- 
ance, man  may  believe  that  the  universe  is  his 
to  do  with  as  he  will,  but  quickly  he  learns 
his  limitations,  and  falls  crushed  and  broken. 
But  it  is  to  mount  again,  for  still  he  feels  and 
throbs,  to  once  more  try  those  upper  virgin 
realms  of  air.  There  is  much  sweat  in  Claude's 
Jesus  and  the  Fishermen,  as  well  as  exquisite- 
ness.  More  often  than  not,  imagination  must 
be  driven,  pelted  by  the  will,  spurred  and  be- 
labored, and  always  it  must  be  guided,  for 


r  32  ] 

never  was  so  wayward  and  perverse  a  thing, 
striking  off  to  Boetian  swamps,  when  the 
course  is  to  Helicon.    Venus  and  Satyr,  Para- 
dise and  Inferno,  are  aUke  its  creatures.  And 
Tantalus  is  its  forbear.      How  often,  how 
pathetically  often,  has  the  artist  after  vigil 
and  travail,  reached  out  his  hands  in  hunger 
and  desire  to  grasp  the  shining  image,  to  find 
it  is  not  there,  or  that  what  he  believed  to  be 
gold  is  tinsel.    But  none  so  indefatigable,  so 
pitiless  of  self,  as  he  who  has  tasted  the 
sweets  of  creation.    He  will  search  the  world, 
aye  all  the  worlds,  and  foot  by  foot,  till  he 
find  the  treasure.     Slowly  the  nebulous  and 
evanescent  will  take  form,  feeling  be  imaged 
and  vestured,  and  some  old  passion  made  to 
smile,  or  blight  anew.     It  is  not  a  tree,  nor  a 
cloud,  nor  a  hill,  nor  a  light,  that  imagination 
seeks,  not  some  particular  glen,  not  some 
particular  shore,  or  city  sky-line  or  abandoned 
farm,  but  it  is  a  cloud  of  clouds,  a  sea  of  seas, 
a  light  of  lights,  a  composite  and  fabrication, 
but  like  in  every  feature,  that  will  spell  out 
the  emotion  more  poignantly  and  superbly. 
This,  the  sublimation  of  truth,  most  bright- 
ly beams  of  all]  that  meets  our  wondering 
eyes. 


[    33    ] 

0  Sea,  O  Mountain,  0  Sky,  O  Plain,  are 
you  not  mine,  mine  as  my  soul  is  mine?  Am 
I  not  around  you,  and  in  you,  and  of  you? 
Have  I  not  found  myself  in  you,  mingled  with 
you,  and  possessed  you?  And  the  light  that 
breaks  triumphantly  upon  you,  that  blazes  by 
day  and  caresses  by  night,  is  not  that  mine, 
and  am  I  not  of  it?  In  all  of  your  power  and 
majesty  and  splendor  am  I  not  a  part?  Do  I 
not  shine  in  evening  star,  glint  on  the  wave, 
glow  in  your  glow?  Is  not  my  spirit  every- 
where, the  color  and  the  sheen  and  the  warm 
palpitating  life  of  it? 

1  rerftember  to  have  seen  in  a  Mexican 
cathedral  an  old  Spanish  picture  of  the  Vir- 
gin. Her  breast  was  open,  showing  the 
heart,  and  in  the  midst  of  it  was  a  lambent 
flame.  Very  clear  and  steady  it  burned, 
bathed  in  a  rosy  whiteness,  and  the  beams, 
pale  and  silvery,  radiated  to  the  golden  frame. 
It  was  not  a  picture  of  the  Virgin  so  much,  as 
of  a  flame  divinely  placed.  To  me  it  was  an 
emblem  of  the  spirit,  alive  in  and  illuminat- 
ing the  flesh.  And  those  rays  of  light,  had 
the  frame  not  intercepted  them,  would  have 
gone  on  and  on,  out  of  that  dim  and  shadowy 
nave,  across  the   wastes  of  night,   to  find 


[    34    ] 


f- 


lodgment  in  some  other  bosom.  More  pro- 
found than  feeling,  more  mounting  than  im- 
agination, more  intangible  than  thought, 
spirit  lies  over  against  the  infinite.  It  has 
light,  for  we  see  it,  warmth  and  cold,  for  we 
feel  them.  It  prevades  like  a  perfume,  and 
surrounds  like  an  atmosphere.  All  that  we 
see  is  tinged  with  it,  all  that  we  hear  sounds 
with  it,  all  that  we  touch  is  imbued  with  it, 
all  that  we  know  partakes  of  it.  It  is  fine,  and 
pure  and  noble,  and  it  is  coarse,  and  base 
and  ignoble.  It  is  ourselves;  yet  not  neces- 
sarily the  selves  we  daily  show  the  world,  al- 
though they  too,  of  course,  impart  the  subtle 
emanation,  but  rather  the  secret  and  inner 
selves  that  abide  at  the  font  of  feeling  and  of 
fancy.  It  is  a  sort  of  glamour  and  rarefied 
habiliment,  over  and  about  the  passions  and 
the  imagination.  It  is  singular  and  individual, 
more   so  than  feeling  or  imagination;  they 

may  be  similar,  almost  identical,  in  different 
persons;  but  spirit  is  always  peculiar  and 
idiosyncratic,  and  yet  of  so  happy  a  quality, 
that  it  blends  best  with  the  universal  mind. 
It  ebbs  and  flows  like  the  sea,  today  rising 
and  insurgent,  tonight  receding  and  sub- 
missive.    And  its  luminousness,  ambient  and 


William  Ritschel 

Light  on  the  Sea 


j:iH08Tl51  I7IAIJJl¥/ 

B98  9fi:r  no  IrlgiJ 


[    35    ] 

circumfusing,  converts  and  transmutes  thing 
and  matter  into  the  incorporeal,  to  the  end  that 
spirit  holds  and  possesses  nature,  that  nature 
lives  in  the  spirit,  instead  of  the  spirit  in  nature. 
Feeling  and  fancy  are  but  introduction  and  pro- 
logue. As  mountain  and  sea  are  swallowed 
up  in  the  splendor  of  sunset,  are  no  longer 
mountain  and  sea,  but  appendages  of  the 
dominant  resplendence,  so  infused  and 
pierced  with  light  that  they  are  light,  and 
for  the  moment  severed  from  the  gross  rock 
and  water,  existent  alone  in  and  as  part  of 
the  omnipotent  brightness,  so  in  the  spirit 
of  man,  all  this  teeming  earth  is  transfused, 
and  has  its  being.  Tree  and  field,  hill  and 
valley,  the  sky,  the  air,  the  terrestrial  whole, 
live  in  us.  Canvas  and  printed  page,  image 
and  description  of  image,  are  adumbrations 
of  spirit.  As  it  is  high  or  low,  lofty  or  base, 
strong  or  weak,  so  will  be  canvas  or  page, 
treasure  or  dross.  Feeling  may  be  racial, 
imagination  tied  to  a  people's  knowledge, 
but  spirit  is  world  wide,  without  confine  or 
barrier. 

The  ruck  of  men,  as  has  been  said,  care 
nothing  for  nature.  She  is  a  bed  to  lie  in,  a 
table  to  satisfy  hunger,  and  a  sort  of  haber- 


[    36    ] 

dashery  where  hats  and  coats  may  be  ob- 
tained. Daily  they  see  and  feel  and  hear  her, 
as  she  affects  their  physical  welfare,  and  they 
are  familiar  in  a  general  way,  with  her  forms 
and  colors.  They  dwell  in  a  perpetual  twi- 
light, ranging  from  the  darkling  and  obscure 
to  the  diaphanous  and  hazy.  When  they  lift 
their  eyes  to  the  sun,  it  is  to  learn  the  time 
of  day,  and  of  the  moon,  they  have  made  a 
weather  prognosticator.  Indifference  is  the 
rule,  attentiveness  the  exception,  and  love 
outside  their  sphere.  World  may  have  a 
dozen  meanings,  but  to  most  men  it  has  only 
one:  themselves  and  their  neighbors.  Eve 
is  more  captivating  than  Eden,  Moses  and 
his  tablet  of  laws  more  impressive  than  Sinai, 
and  John  crying  in  the  desert  more  inspiring 
than  the  wild,  lonely  places  of  his  roaming. 
Men,  the  common  and  the  average,  loom  big- 
ger than  the  planets.  Feeling,  fancy  and 
spirit  are  theirs,  not  tokens  of  immortality 
perhaps,  but  surely  the  crest  and  topping 
pitch  of  life.  The  sea  may  not  move  us,  nor 
the  stars  stir  our  fancy,  nor  the  scope  of 
heaven  lift  our  spirits,  but  a  cry  of  distress 
will  make  us  tingle,  a  speaking  word  fire  our 
fancy,  and  a  Calvary  etherealize  us.  To  offer 


[    37    ] 

the  generality  of  men,  transcripts  of  trees 
and  ponds  and  clouds  and  hills  and  valleys, 
is  to  offer  them  husks  and  stones.  They  want, 
and  will  have,  themselves.  What  quickens 
feeling  like  feeling,  touches  imagination  like 
imagination,  elicits  spirit  like  spirit?  The 
master  passions,  imaginations  and  spirits, 
those  ultra-expressions  of  ourselves,  are  pools 
of  refreshment  and  delight.  Small  wonder 
that  the  intimates  of  our  being,  the  stuff  and 
fabric  of  us,  should  color  our  senses  willy- 
nilly,  small  wonder  that  when  our  weak  beat 
of  feeling,  our  crawling  fancy,  and  flickering 
spirit,  come  in  contact  with  tumultuous  pas- 
sion or  deep  sunk  mood,  the  lift  and  swing 
of  surpassing  imagination,  or  the  white  glow 
of  spirit,  we  are  whelmed  and  immersed  in 
the  higher  powers,  and  become  for  the  time 
superior  to  ourselves.  We  see  with  eyes 
other  than  our  own,  feel  with  a  heart  other 
than  ours,  and  stand  forth  in  a  vicarious 
brightness.  Thus  we  enter  the  upper  cham- 
bers, the  ideal  so-called,  but  in  truth,  merely 
the  realism  of  heart  and  soul.  It  may  be  a 
gala  under  the  myriad  leaves  of  a  forest,  or 
the  destruction  of  a  host  in  dark  mountain 
gorge,  or  desperate  abordage  in,  "bleak  dan- 


[    38    ] 

gerous  sea-surroundings,"  that  forms  the 
outer  guise;  that  is  subordinate,  as  secondary 
as  that  northern  castle  where  Hamlet  met  his 
father's  wraith,  or  the  stream  where  poor 
Ophelia  perished.  But  feeling,  fancy,  spirit, 
they  are  the  zenith  and  the  circumference, 
the  measure  of  life,  and  the  field  of  art. 

Some  would  have  art  an  uncharted,  rather 
than  an  enchanted  sea,  and  so  bent  are  they 
upon  lifting  a  new  world  into  view,  they 
voyage  by  the  Isles  without  seeing  them.  Un- 
discovered shores,  brilliant  birds  in  a  land  of 
bloom,  rivers  that  wind  upon  themselves  with- 
out source  or  mouth,  cataracts  tumbling  out 
of  clouds,  things  curious,  unfamiliar  and 
bizarre,  allure  them.  Such  is  their  heady 
zeal,  they  do  not  consider,  that  the  passion 
driving  them  on,  is  the  material  of  art,  and 
not  the  fantasia  at  the  end  of  the  world. 
Change,  they  cry,  is  life,  and  flit  from  thing 
to  thing,  enraptured  with  the  novel  because 
it  is  novel,  disdainful  of  the  old  because  it  is 
old.  Change  is  incessant,  as  of  course,  but  it 
is  not  universal;  the  primal  and  supreme 
know  it  not.  Their  thousand  aspects  and  ap- 
parent alterations,  are  but  phases.  The 
great  things  in  our  lives,  are  they  not  as 


[    39    ] 

various  as  the  days,  as  diverse  as  the  seasons, 
and  as  constant?  Art  was  art,  when  the 
savage  scrawled  an  aurochs  on  the  smoky 
wall  of  his  cave,  and  when  Millet  painted  the 
Gleaners.  The  feelings  of  the  tribesmen, 
when  with  torch  aloft,  they  looked  at  the 
tremendous  beast,  were  kindred  to  those  of 
the  citizens,  ages  after,  upon  beholding  the 
women  at  their  task.  The  savages  saw  the 
chase,  the  charge,  the  trampled  bodies  of  the 
slain;  the  citizens  their  lives  of  toil.  Each 
gave  and  took  their  own.  The  cause,  the 
process  and  the  result  were  the  same.  The 
difference  was  mere  growth,  a  widening  out 
and  climbing  up,  and  the  incident  of  sur- 
roundings. For  art,  always  and  everywhere, 
is  the  imbuing  of  an  object,  or  some  tangible, 
bodily  thing,  with  the  feeling,  fancy  and 
spirit,  characteristic  of  and  belonging  to  the 
period  and  the  country,  the  embellishing  of 
the  whole  with  what  is  thought  to  be  beauti- 
ful, and  the  casting  upon  all  the  semblance  of 
what  is  conceived  to  be  truth.  It  is  as  simple 
as  a  shaft  of  light  on  a  bank.  The  quality  of 
the  light  will  depend  upon  whether  it  be  cast 
by  candle  or  sun;  the  quality  of  the  art  upon 
whether  it  be  cast  by  passions,  fancies,  and 


X 


[    40    ] 

spirits,  weak  or  powerful.  And  art  is  light, 
opposed  to  the  veiled  and  mysterious,  ever 
publishing  and  displaying.  Verse  may  change 
but  poetry  will  not;  music,  but  not  melody; 
the  forms  and  methods  of  painting,  but  never 
the  subjects  to  be  portrayed.  No  one  is 
fooled  with  dexterity  of  craft,  or  shifts  and 
tricks  to  cover  emptiness,  for  men  know 
their  city,  and  clamor  without  the  walls 
avails  nothing.  -We  hunger  for  ourselves.  It 
is  not  change  we  crave,  but  a  more  complete 
manifestation.  Every  day  we  look  at  the  sky, 
the  field  and  the  sea;  we  do  not  want  another 
sky,  nor  field,  nor  sea,  but  only,  and  bounteous- 
ly are  we  served,  new  revelations  of  them.j 
Our  wondrous  passage,  the  flare  of  earth 
•f  upon  us,  and  our  response,  our  amazing,  ever- 
opening,  unsolvable  selves,  must  be  our  chief- 
est  delight  and  deepest  despair.  Were  we  to 
advance  to  the  furthermost  station,  and  scale 
the  ultimate  height,  there  would  be  no  de- 
parture, no  variance,  but  only  a  fuller  com- 
prehension. As  well  expect  harvest  at  Christ- 
mastide,  or  a  show  of  strange  stars  on  a  sum- 
mer's night,  as  an  art  not  in  harmony  with  the 
primordial.] 


II 


THE  ATTENDANTS,  TRUTH  AND 
BEAUTY 

HAVING  said  that  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit 
are  the  elements  of  landscape,  I  have 
done  no  more  I  fear,  than  cry  the  hour  from 
the  housetops,  or  declaim  what  every  one 
knows,  that  earth,  atmosphere  and  light  com- 
prise the  day,  It  is  but  a  flourish,  a  pro- 
vocative fanfaronade.  Squirm  as  we  may, 
there  is  no  denying,  that  our  proud  intellect, 
with  all  its  reasons  why  and  causes  for,  oc- 
cupies a  narrower  demesne  than  its  humbler 
relations,  and  only  learns  by  hearsay,  vague  and 
uncertain,  of  the  out-region  where  they  so 
freely  roam.  It  is  there,  across  the  confines, 
the  fountains  break.  Having  with  earnest- 
ness contended  that  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit 
are  components  of  landscape,  I  am  now  com- 
pelled to  admit,  that  I  am  in  a  great  ignorance 
concerning  them,  as  I  am  of  earth  and  at- 
mosphere and  light,  but  aver  that  I  know 
them  well.  Not  for  me  to  track  the  abyss, 
or  pioneer  behind  the  sun;  but  the  bright- 
ness and  the  majesty  are  mine,  notwithstand- 
ing my  incomprehension.    And  here  is  one 


[    42    ] 

of  our  mazes— a  mystery  not  of  art,  for  art 
may  display  the  sense  of  it  well  enough— that 
we  pass  beyond  analysis,  classification  and 
definition,  beyond  the  hard  and  fast  of  two 
and  two,  and  often  enjoy  most  when  we 
reason  least.  But  if  the  domain  be  wide,  it 
is  not  without  its  arbiters,  who,  if  not  as  ex- 
acting as  those  of  the  schools,  are,  if  anything, 
more  difficult  to  please. 

Bearing  in  mind  that  the  purpose  of  art  is 
to  enhance  this  present  life,  it  is  pertinent  to 
ask,  what  qualities  toward  this  accomplish- 
ment, may  be  added  to  or  superimposed  upon 
those  substances  already  considered.  An 
endeavor  has  been  made  to  show,  that  the 
objects  of  nature  are  but  the  materials.  With- 
out arrogance,  but  with  conviction,  we  con- 
sider this  point  maintained.  It  is  equally 
clear,  that  the  human  elements  we  have 
been  discussing,  are  also  only  materials,  al- 
though of  a  nobler  order.  A  valley  between 
mountains,  and  opening  to  the  sea,  green 
with  the  spring  and  roofed  with  azure,  that 
is  one  thing;  the  passion  of  spring,  the  joy 
and  the  hope  of  it,  all  spangled  out  with  fan- 
cy, and  the  timid,  sweet  spirit  that  belongs  to 
it,  that  is  another  thing.      And  still  there 


Charles  H.  Davis 

Clouds 


8IVAG  .H  gaj^AHO 
gbuoD 


^rr^ 


.0 


[    43    ] 

is  a  lack.  Valley,  mountains,  sea  and  sky, 
joy  and  hope,  the  range  of  fancy,  and  spell  of 
spirit,  one  and  all,  are  inadequate  for  the 
complete  presentment.  Down  the  centuries,  as 
down  some  dark  and  labyrinthine  way,  emerg- 
ing from  the  mists  and  slowly  advancing, 
and  growing  in  brightness,  as  step  by  step 
they  come,  even  if  now  and  then  they  cloak 
their  faces,  are  those  two  figures,  toward 
whom  all  men  have  held  appealing  hands, 
and  raised  adoring  eyes.  As  nature  is  lifted 
up  by  the  blending  with  her  of  feeling,  fancy 
and  spirit,  and  becomes  a  charming  go-be- 
tween, so  is  the  whole  work  and  design,  form, 
color,  mood  and  imagining,  exalted  and  per- 
fected by  the  gracious  touch  of  Truth  and 
Beauty. 

Of  truth,  there  would  appear  to  be  two 
main  branches:  that  which  we  know  by  dem- 
onstration of  intellect,  and  that  which  we 
feel  by  the  exercise  of  other  faculties.  The  one, 
if  indeed  it  be  the  truth,  prevails  everywhere, 
and  is  the  same  at  all  times;  the  other,  local  in 
character,  may  be  truth  today  and  falsity  to- 
morrow. The  fine  arts  fall  under  the  latter 
division,  and  are  subservient  to  as  many 
truths,  as  there  are  peoples  scattered  over  the 


[    44    ] 

face  of  the  earth.  In  art  that  is  true  which 
is  believed  to  be  true.  It  matters  not  if  it  be 
verity,  if  only  it  satisfies  and  convinces.  As 
it  springs  from  life,  it  must  conform  to  it; 
not  alone  to  that  which  is,  but  to  that  which 
has  been,  and  is  remembered.  That  is  truest, 
which  most  nearly  approaches  the  general 
conception  of  what  the  true  should  be.  It  can 
make  no  possible  difference  whether  the  con- 
ception be  true  or  not,  measured  by  foreign 
standards.  Art  is  not  a  pathfinder  in  far 
places,  not  a  discoverer  of  the  strange  and 
unheard  of;  but  however  it  may  go  afield  in 
means  and  equipment,  its  steadfast  purpose 
is  to  manifest  and  exhibit,  that  which  is  al- 
ready dimly  sensed,  and  hence  in  a  manner 
known,  but  not  realized;  and  to  do  it  in  such 
fashion  as  to  gratify  and  delight.  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  future  generations  or  other 
races;  it  is  of  its  own  day  and  its  own  peo- 
ple. If  at  that  time  and  to  them  it  be  true, 
nothing  else  is  of  consequence.  But  I  would 
not  be  construed  too  closely;  by  time  is  not 
meant  the  years  of  an  artist's  output,  or  by 
people,  a  community  or  section;  but  more 
largely,  such  as  a  cycle,  and  such  as  a  coun- 
try, with  a  common  history  and  the  same 


[    45    ] 

general  outlook.  It  may  come  about  that 
distant  nations,  or  remote  times,  may  take 
for  their  own  another's  standard,  but  this 
would  be  indicative  merely,  that  nations  or 
ages  derived  for  the  nonce,  more  satisfaction 
from  that  specific  ideal,  and  not  that  in  a 
thousand  years  or  even  a  tittle  of  it,  still  a 
truer  might  not  be  found  and  the  old  dis- 
carded. Thus  it  is,  that  artistic  truth  is  ever 
in  the  flux,  but  ever  tending  and  converging, 
it  must  be,  toward  the  final  goal  when 
all  the  world  will  be  one.  Those  old  archi- 
tects of  the  Nile,  and  of  Babylonian  palaces, 
and  they  who  chiseled  the  Attic  porches, 
who  was  nigher  truth?  or  was  it  he  who 
dreamed  the  Taj  Mahal?  Certain  it  is,  that 
Egypt's  truth  was  truth  to  her,  and  India's 
to  her,  and  as  completely  as  ever  was  Greece's, 
and  that  Egyptian  and  Indian  arts  were  true 
in  those  countries,  however  false  they  might 
have  been  in  Greece. 

But  although  a  people  speak  the  voice  will 
be  that  of  one  man.  The  same  thing  may  be 
uttered  by  different  persons,  in  different  ways, 
and  given  different  appearances,  and  yet  all 
be  true,  for  the  general  truth  is  made  known, 
only  impressed  by  varying  viewpoints  and 


[    46    ] 

glossed  by  varying  temperaments.  A  picture 
of  languorous  clouds  and  slumberous  hills, 
curtained  pillows  of  repose,  is  true;  and  a 
picture  of  meadows,  lulled  and  still,  where 
one  might  drowse  himself  away,  is  true.  All 
of  the  world's  art  is  but  the  testimony  of  a 
few,  and  all  the  truth  declared  their  version 
of  it.  While  then,  it  may  be  correct  to  say 
that  truth  is  that  which  appears  to  be  true  to 
a  people,  at  or  about  the  time  of  its  produc- 
tion, yet  in  a  fuller  and  more  complete  sense,  it 
is  the  rendering  by  the  individual,  and  as  he 
may  feel  and  behold  them,  of  the  emotions 
and  conceptions  of  the  many.  The  greater 
artist  will  express  the  greater  truth.  - 

To  be  an  artist  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  man, 
and  a  downright  worldly  one  at  that.  Never 
yet  has  edifice  reared  its  spires  that  was  not 
deeply  foundationed.  Those  wan,  ascetic 
creatures,  hermits  and  recluses,  fearful  of 
life's  plunge,  have  no  place  in  art,  for  it  is  of 
the  stream  with  rush  and  swirl,  and  not  the 
shore.  The  artist  is  close  product  of  the 
soil,  redolent  of  it,  cheek  by  jowl  with  hussy 
and  knave,  as  well  as  virtue  and  worth,  and 
if  his  head  be  among  the  stars  now  and  then, 
be  sure  his  feet  are  in  the  mire.   Rhapsodists, 


[    47    ] 

souls  cast  from  their  moorings,  and  founder- 
ing in  their  own  illusions,  are  only  pretenders 
here.  To  the  artist,  life  is  not  a  spectacle, 
but  an  occupation.  Whatever  he  may  add 
to  truth,  by  reason  of  his  wider  capacity  and 
profounder  grasp,  will  not  only  be  indigenous, 
but  broadly  bottomed  in  the  known  and  com- 
mon. But  it  is  a  singularity  of  his  cognizance 
and  a  requirement  of  his  profession  that  he 
be  engrossed,  not  so  much  with  what  a  thing 
is,  as  with  what  it  appears  to  be.  In  a  way,  de- 
ception lies  at  the  root  of  the  arts,  for  they 
are  all  seeming.  We  are  enamored  of  ap- 
pearances. A  mountain  or  forest  or  rolling 
plain  swims  into  view,  and  has  a  correct  and 
proper  look,  whether  it  be  near  or  far,  in 
mist  or  sunshine.  The  appearance  is  true,  be- 
cause it  is  in  accord  with  our  teaching  and 
experience.  We  are  aware,  that  mountain, 
forest  and  plain,  within  and  of  themselves, 
are  of  a  different  actuality,  but  we  are  ob- 
livious of  that,  and  tenacious  only  of  the  sem- 
blance. So  indurated  and  bitten  into  us  is 
the  outward  show,  that  we  would  believe 
the  substance  itself  false,  rather  than  the 
accustomed  face  of  it.  To  this  perdurable 
and  unyielding  rule,  the  deeper  verities  lend 


[    48    ] 

their  emphasis,  all  the  more  beguiling  us  with 
their  very  potency;  but  as  if  to  compensate  for 
the  deceit,  invariably  the  more  intimate  and 
profound  subtleties  are  distinguished,  by  the 
more  significant  and  enthralling  appearances. 

When  in  the  contemplation  of  nature  we 
see  fields,  trees,  rocks,  skies,  waters  and  light, 
a  consciousness  is  aroused  of  something  ad- 
ditional, of  something  quite  beyond  lake  or 
valley  or  desert  or  dawn,  a  compelling  force 
and  power,  and  our  kinship  and  affinity  with 
it.  We  catch  the  tremendous  drift,  at  some 
auroral  hour  feel  the  universal  surge,  know  it 
as  our  own  and  in  unison  go  our  way.  It  is 
the  exhibition  of  the  appearances  of  such 
concepts,  the  publication  of  those  arrange- 
ments whatever  they  may  be,  that  most  readi- 
ly suggest  them,  which  constitute  truth  indeed. 

With  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit,  (and  like- 
wise with  that  other  attendant,  for  truth  em- 
braces all,  and  only  the  true  can  be  beautiful) 
it  is  the  same.  They  also  have  appearances 
whereby  we  know  them.  We  look  for  the 
familiar  garb,  and  if  we  miss  it,  are  as  among 
strangers.  Our  interest  lies  in  the  super- 
ficies of  the  phenomena,  and  their  harmony 
with  rule.    A  laugh,  even  if  it  be  the  apo- 


DWIGHT  W.  TRYON 

October's  Close 


<)V 


'A0Y9{T  .W  THOIWQ 


[    49    ] 

theosis  of  grief,  is  nevertheless  jocose.  There 
have  grown  in  us  by  tradition  and  association, 
perceptions  not  of  the  composition  of  feehng, 
imagination  and  spirit,  but  of  the  appearance 
of  the  results  and  effects  of  them;  and  if  we 
would  be  moved,  our  sense  of  the  feel  of  these 
appearances,  must  be  reached.  That  only  will 
ring  true  which  raises  within  us,  something 
kindred  to  our  own  preconceived  notion  of  it. 
With  a  world  thus  m.ade  up,  the  painter 
comes  to  his  work.  It  is  taken  for  granted 
that  he  is  familiar  with  the  appearances  of 
nature,  in  detail  and  in  mass,  and  the  appear- 
ances of  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit  as  observed 
by  most  men.  To  these  must  be  added,  that 
which  is  less  definable  and  more  subtle,  some- 
thing of  knowledge,  facileness  and  dexterity, 
but  more  of  an  inborn  gift  and  natural  en- 
dowment, a  mastery  of  the  commerce  of  thing 
and  emotion,  the  power  to  co-ordinate  the  one 
with  the  other,  so  that  the  appearance  of  the 
material  will  shadow  out  the  appearance  of  the 
immaterial,  for  the  intangible  has  its  aspects 
no  less  than  the  substantial.  Lastly,  there 
must  be  present,  in  the  whole,  the  most  enig- 
matical of  all,  the  personal  touch,  the  deeper 
and  wider  and  more  searching  survey,  that  is 


[    50    ] 

the  very  scepter  of  truth.  It  is  all  as  if  some 
loftier  sun,  might  enlarge  the  horizon,  and 
cast  an  intenser  light,  and  of  different  hue, 
upon  this  same  old  earth. 

More  than  once  we  have  built  about  us 
structures  of  such  appalling  magnitude,  that 
we  have  been  lost  in  our  own  creations.  The 
simplicity  of  charm,  like  that  of  power  has 
given  rise  to  theories,  the  most  abstruse  and 
perplexing.  When  we  consider  the  nations 
who  have  fared  from  the  primeval  nest,  their 
manner  of  life,  and  the  rim  of  their  intelli- 
gence, notwithstanding  the  lore  that  weighs 
us  down,  little  doubt  can  exist  concerning  the 
causes  of  the  beautitul,  however  great  diver- 
sity of  opinion  may  prevail,  as  to  what  is  or  is 
not,  beautiful.  Discover  that  which  adorns 
and  delights,  and  beauty  lies  in  your  hand. 

Whether  it  be  ocean  roaring  from  pole  to 
pole,  or  meteor  flashing  across  the  night,  or 
desert  quivering  in  fiery  heat,  or  summer's 
tempest  hurtling  with  ominous  front  to  burst 
in  majesty  on  a  world  of  green,  or  winter 
rolling  her  sodden  skies,  or  mountains  linking 
continent  to  continent  and  lifting  their  scar- 
red and  battled  peaks,  or  rivers  dashing  in 
glens,  wetting  the  roots  of  pines,  and  grandly 


[    51    ] 

meeting  the  sea,  or  plains  spreading  endless- 
ly, radiant  with  flowers,  or  tumbled  with 
wastage  of  another  time,  all  is  harmony,  not 
the  smooth  flow  of  the  inane  and  complacent, 
but  the  larger  harmony  which  includes  dis- 
cord. Not  clod,  nor  leaf  of  tree,  nor  wisp  of 
cloud,  nor  fleck  of  foam,  but  has  its  conflict; 
but  although  shock  and  cataclysm  may  come, 
there  is  never  disaster;  and  warrings  cruel 
enough,  only  work  the  final  peace.  Nature 
attains  a  consummate  justness.  Still  she 
carries  with  her  the  concord,  and  the  perfect 
unity  of  her  source. 

Of  this  general  agreement  and  correspond- 
ence man  is  part,  swinging  from  his  first 
estate  into  the  outer  circles,  and  within  the 
lights  of  other  worlds,  yet  never  beyond 
reach  of  ear.  Civilization,  with  its  glories 
and  deal  of  trumpery,  has  not  estranged  him. 
Through  bitter  childhood,  (bitter  as  wolf  cub's 
slaughtered  in  his  hole)  and  freer  maturity, 
nature  has  passed  with  him,  and  never  has 
hand  left  hand.  Compare  the  different  stages 
in  their  progress,  and  the  relations  in  each, 
and  the  beauty  that  burst  from  earth,  and 
blossomed  over  and  over  again  along  the 
way. 


[    52    ] 

Far  back  in  the  beginnings,  a  land  is 
shouldered  from  the  deep.  Waves  beat  its 
cliffs  and  froth  on  its  desolate  sands;  forests, 
dense  and  sombre,  infested  with  beasts  and 
serpents,  poisonous  with  vapors,  gaudy  with 
bird  and  flower,  stretch  back  from  the  sea; 
level  places,  grown  with  rank  grass,  swept  by 
countless  herds,  and  tracked  by  lords  of  prey, 
succeed  the  forests;  there  are  lakes  and  rivers 
bordered  with  bamboo,  and  matted  with  rush, 
fanned  by  a  million  wings;  morasses,  heaving 
with  wallowing  creatures;  mountains  gapped 
and  chasmed,  drenched  with  torrential  rains; 
and  above  a  sky  where  tempests  drive,  and 
lightnings  dart,  and  over  all,  and  in  all,  every- 
where, the  fierceness  of  the  wild.  Upon  such 
a  theatre  man  sets  his  hesitating  foot,  and  is 
absorbed  as  flesh  in  new  grass,  or  stream  in 
ocean.  He  prowls  and  stalks  and  fights,  with 
sole  design  to  fill  himself,  clothe  his  naked- 
ness against  the  cold,  kill  his  enemies,  and 
escape  the  general  doom.  He  lies  on  nature's 
bosom,  a  savage  tugging  at  a  savage  breast. 
And  yet  there  is  beauty.  Perhaps  it  is  a 
feather  stuck  in  his  tangled  hair,  perhaps  the 
tusk  of  an  animal  hung  about  his  neck,  a 
pigment    daubed  on  his  cheeks,  a  shining 


[    53    ] 

Stone  fashioned  in  lacerated  ear  or  protruding 
lip,  the  sheen  of  the  sun  on  a  pelt,  or  some 
shape  in  stone  or  wood  he  has  hid  in  the  hol- 
low of  a  tree.  Whatever  it  may  be,  it  adorns, 
and  is  delightful  to  the  extent  that  it  embel- 
lishes. All  fits  the  universal  scheme:  in  a 
world  of  bale  and  ferocity,  beauty  takes  the 
common  cast,  and  is  as  barbaric  as  the  en- 
yironment. 

Far  within  the  mountains,  against  the 
northern  sky,  loom  domes  and  peaks  of 
glistening  white.  In  stately  line  they  march 
across  the  world.  Southward  they  send  out 
tremendous  buttresses,  black  with  forest, 
falling  away  in  misty  precipices,  and  rolling 
in  long,  round,  smooth  hills,  to  the  pasture 
lands  of  the  valley.  Here,  flowing  eastward, 
is  a  river,  its  waters  jade-green.  The  rich 
pastures  run  on  into  the  south,  rising  to  the 
round,  smooth  hills,  which  in  turn  climb  the 
slopes  and  the  beetling  walls,  and  the  forested 
heights  of  another  range,  capped  and  pin- 
nacled with  white.  The  sun  is  in  the  west, 
and  swung  across  from  northern  to  southern 
bound,  is  the  bright,  resplendent  blue  of  high 
places.  Birds  of  prodigious  wing  soar  in  the 
central  depths,  and  by  the  river,  under  trees, 


[    54    ] 

beasts  lie  at  rest.  Into  the  valley  from  the 
east,  pursuing  the  winding  river,  come  for 
the  first  time,  herds  of  cattle  and  goats. 
Long-haired  tribesmen,  half-naked  and  brown, 
goad  them  on.  Behind  the  herds  are  asses, 
laden  with  red-clay  pots,  implements  of  agri- 
culture, and  for  weaving,  and  household  gear, 
and  following  them,  men  and  women,  clothed 
in  loose  white  garments,  and  many  children. 
Straggling  to  the  rear  are  other  men  and 
women,  of  wilder  look,  with  copper  collars  on 
their  necks,  and  bent  low  under  burdens  of 
grain  and  tent  stuffs.  The  mixed  and  heter- 
ogeneous train  melts  into  the  scene,  moves 
under  the  blue  sky,  the  white  peaks,  and  by 
the  green  river,  with  an  appropriateness  not 
excelled  by  the  herbage  that  is  trampled 
underfoot.  A  headman  walks  to  one  side, 
looks  about  at  the  hills  and  mountains,  and 
in  a  level  place  near  the  water,  thrusts  his 
spear  into  the  ground.  Slaves  raise  the  tents, 
fires  are  built,  cattle,  goats  and  asses  graze 
toward  the  high  lands,  and  the  smell  of  meat 
on  coals  fills  the  air.  Man  has  left  the  forests 
and  come  out  into  the  pastures.  He  is  a  mas- 
ter of  flocks,  a  cultivator  of  crops,  weaver, 
tanner,  potter.  He  has  departed  from  animal- 


[    55    ] 

ism,  but  not  from  nature,  and  the  sun  gone  down 
behind  the  western  snows,  leaves  man  and 
valley  locked  in  their  eternal  embrace.  Beauty 
has  grown  with  him,  changed  as  he  changed, 
mounted  with  his  desires,  and  marvelous 
transition,  the  world  that  was  savage,  is  no 
longer  so.  He  wears  the  yellow  tusk,  but 
now  it  is  a  jewel  at  his  throat,  the  daub  of 
pigment  has  been  worked  into  patterns  for 
tent  and  robe,  the  outline  of  wood  or  stone 
is  found  in  curve  of  vase,  and  for  the  light  of 
sun  on  fur,  he  has  seen  the  shining  hills. 
Feeling  he  always  had,  but  now  there  is  charm 
in  the  manner  of  it.  Poetry  has  come,  and 
romance,  crude  and  unformed  as  yet,  but 
truly  themselves,  and  his  life  like  the  sky  at 
dusk,  fills  with  a  thousand  stars.  He  beholds 
the  unseen,  hears  the  unheard,  catches  some 
little  of  the  rhythm  and  unison  between  them 
and  things  seen  and  heard  daily,  and  dis- 
covers, though  as  one  groping  in  a  mist  and 
peering  for  his  course,  that  the  delights  of 
earth  which  he  has  known,  although  losing 
none  of  their  delightfulness,  are  instrumentali- 
ties to  strange  new  lovlinesses,  none  the  less 
captivating  because  not  grasped  by  hand  or 
visualized  by  eye. 


[    56    ] 

Where  in  old  days  the  waves  beat  on  des- 
olate sands,  a  city  rears  its  piles  and  throws 
its  banners  to  the  winds.  The  harbor  swarms 
with  craft,  the  marts  are  gay  with  fabrics 
from  far-off  climes,  lofty  pillars  carved  and 
fluted  line  the  tumultuous  streets,  and  the 
houses,  set  one  against  the  other,  are  painted 
with  every  color.  On  what  was  once  a  shift- 
ing dune,  stands  a  noble  temple.  Back  from 
the  city  where  the  forests  were,  are  fields  of 
wheat  and  barley,  and  meadows  with  cattle. 
The  morning  sun  glints  on  the  harbor  waters, 
the  metal-work  of  ships,  the  silks  in  the 
booths,  the  windows  and  the  roofs  of  build- 
ings, the  gold  on  the  temple,  and  the  pools  of 
water  in  lane  and  byway.  The  light  strikes 
ship  and  temple  as  kindly  as  sea  and  pool, 
and  tower  and  minaret  swim  serenely  and  at 
one,  in  the  opalescent  air.  Men  are  every- 
where: in  the  rigging  of  ships,  on  the  wharves 
and  strands,  before  the  shops  and  the  great 
pillared  buildings,  in  the  streets,  about  the 
temple,  and  in  the  green  fields.  They  go  in 
crowds,  even  they  who  follow  one  in  long 
scarlet  robe,  and  holding  aloft  an  image,  are 
a  crowd  and  motley  jam.  All  is  unrest  and 
turmoil,  but  befitting  and  in  key.    Man  has 


George  Inness 

Sunset 


[    57    ] 

left  the  pastures  and  congregated  in  cities. 
Again  he  has  departed,  but  she  who  was  with 
him  in  jungle  and  in  valley,  is  at  his  side. 
Not  wall,  nor  street,  nor  roof  can  part  them, 
nor  can  he  so  wrap  about  his  soul  with  con- 
vention, that  she  will  not  search  it  out.  His 
temples  are  but  creatures  of  an  hour,  his 
cities  but  caravansaries  for  the  night,  but  she 
is  of  all  time.  He  passes  from  appurtenance 
of  earth  to  attribute  of  spirit,  and  she  smiles 
upon  him,  and  voices  his  inmost  thoughts. 
From  beauty  to  beauty  he  ascends,  building 
nobler  edifices,  conceiving  sounds  that  ravish, 
seeing  sights  beyond  any  earthly  vision,  con- 
triving line  and  color  into  dream  and  passion, 
and  she  takes  him  into  her  arms.  Yellow 
tusk,  totem  pole,  dash  of  color  and  circlet  of 
silk,  sparkling  gem  and  sparkling  eye,  curve 
of  arch  and  sweep  of  line,  depth  of  feeling, 
richness  of  fancy,  and  purity  of  spirit,  what 
are  they  all,  but  lures  of  delight,  adornments 
and  bedeckings,  fruits  of  the  communion  be- 
twixt man  and  nature,  ordained  in  the  first 
design? 

"Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds; 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads; 


[   58    ] 

Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong; 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through 
Thee,  are  fresh  and  strong.". 

Of  all  the  arts  landscape  lies  closest  to 
nature.  Not  elsewhere  may  the  living  pres- 
ence of  earth  be  displayed  so  vividly,  and 
the  mind  be  fitted  with  such  matchless  con- 
joinder  to  its  larger  tenement.  Other  arts 
may  catch  the  spell  of  her,  and  in  winged 
words  or  glorious  strains  present  her  deep 
significances,  but  it  is  a  rendering  once  re- 
moved,  and  hanging  upon  the  subtlety  of 
another  language.  Landscape  goes  into  field 
and  forest,  and  takes  for  her  composition  the 
very  forms  and  colors  of  nature.  In  whisper- 
ing tree  it  is  not  words  that  whisper,  but 
stirring  leaves;  in  light  on  pellucid  waters,  it 
is  not  words  that  sparkle,  but  the  light  of  the 
sun;  in  ocean's  beat  it  is  not  organ's  roll  or 
orchestration,  but  the  waves  racing  on  the 
sands,  and  dashing  on  the  rocks. 

In  nature  small  things  have  small  beauty. 
A  blade  of  grass,  even  with  dew-drop  pendant 
from  its  tip,  is  not  as  beautiful  as  a  meadow; 
the  leaf  of  a  tree  as  the  tree,  nor  the  tree  as 
a  forest;  a  rose,  white  as  snow  and  half  hid- 


[    59    ] 

den  in  greenery,  is  not  as  beautiful  as  the 
bush,  nor  the  bush  as  a  cluster  of  bushes;  a 
wave  is  not  as  beautiful  as  a  sea  of  waves, 
nor  a  hill  as  a  bed  of  them.  The  little  cannot 
escape  their  littleness,  and  are  of  import 
chiefly  in  making  up  the  big.  The  beauty 
of  the  world  lies  in  the  broad  spaces,  in  fields, 
in  forests,  on  the  banks  of  rivers,  the  slopes 
of  mountains,  in  deserts,  and  by  the  sea.  But 
it  is  in  a  still  wider  realm  we  must  look  for 
the  ultimate.  In  those  intangible  paths 
through  the  hollow  kingdom  of  the  sky, 
where  light  holds  sway  imperially,  it  is  there, 
in  tone  and  mass,  beauty  is  royalist.  Be  it 
ever  so  exquisite,  how  trivial  is  flower,  or 
bosky  dell,  or  sequestered  lake,  and  how  far 
down  the  scale  fall  forest  and  plain  and  even 
the  sea,  compared  with  the  pageantry  of  the 
heavens,  the  strike  of  light  and  miracle  of 
air?  Here  from  dawn  to  sunset  the  infinite 
is  displayed,  leans  furtherest  earthwards,  and 
the  night  is  as  the  day.  Light  and  atmosphere, 
they  are  the  soul  and  heart  of  nature,  her 
etherial  and  diviner  part,  and  although  as 
material  and  base  as  rock  or  bleaching  bone, 
they  captivate  and  draw  to  themselves  most 
powerfully,  those  elements  in  us  that  more 


I    60    ] 

nearly  correspond  to  them.  We  attain  with 
them  a  completer  harmony,  and  know  a  pro- 
founder  and  more  perfect  beauty. 

Beauty  is  never  of  one  thing,  but  of  this 
and  that,  of  little  and  of  much,  acting  and  re- 
acting upon  one  another.  The  consumma- 
tion may  be  attained  only  by  the  use  of  more 
or  less  antagonistic  parts,  and  oftener  than 
not,  it  will  be  the  twanging  note  that  lends 
perfection.  Great  beauty  in  anything,  whether 
it  be  in  poem,  novel,  cathedral  or  picture,  or 
in  storm,  summer,  winter,  dawn,  sunset  or 
noon,  is  the  supreme  effect  that  may  be 
wrought  out  of  the  separate  and  distinct,  and 
if  not  conflicting,  at  least  the  opposing,  ele- 
ments employed.  The  midway  passages, 
phases  of  the  turn,  the  drab  monotonies  of 
the  intervals,  must  always  remain  incon- 
sequential. How  we  hearken  and  rise  to  the 
mighty  climaxes?  In  nature  there  must  be 
some  tie,  some  kinship,  some  common  sub- 
stance, deeper  and  more  intimate  than  we 
know  that  binds  us  to  her,  so  completely  and 
consummately  do  we,  not  merely  join,  but 
unite  with  her.  Hardly  a  mood  but  has  its 
counterpart,  hardly  a  fancy  that  may  not 
garland  itself,  and  never  a  spirit  too  rare,  to 


[    61    ] 

commingle  with  and  dissolve  away  in  earthly 
radiances. 

Of  the  effects  in  nature  which  stir  us  deep- 
est, are  those  of  single  appeal,  simplicity  in 
complexity.  Sunrise  and  sunset,  light  tri- 
umphant, night,  mountains,  plains,  the  sea, 
the  profundities  of  air,  the  bending  sky, 
these,  in  their  sovereign  loneness,  are  the  inap- 
proachable. In  all  the  plan,  however  mixed 
and  confounded,  is  order,  regularity  and  sym- 
metry. And  next  we  perceive  that  eternal 
youth  of  things,  that  newness  out  of  the  old, 
that  animation  and  movement  that  is  life. 
Continually  we  are  opening  our  eyes,  the 
whole  of  us,  in  delightful  realization  of  earth's 
fecundity.  There  is  no  time,  there  is  no 
place,  that  life  is  not  stronger  than  death.  In 
its  processes  is  beauty  perennial.  All  beauty 
lives,  is  affirmative,  and  quickens  with  a 
ravishing  expectancy. 

It  is  not  possible  for  the  senses  to  be 
charmed  separately  from  the  emotions,  nor 
may  they  in  turn  know  enjoyment  except  in 
conjunction  with  the  primary  perceptions. 
Only  beauty  conveys  beauty.  The  lure  of 
thing  is  interwoven  and  intertwined  with  the 
lure  of  thought,  and  the  one  cannot    exist 


[    62    ]      ■ 

without  the  other.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
opening  of  morning,  the  flush,  the  Httle  finger- 
ings of  Hght  about  the  stars,  the  trembHngs 
of  things  coming  into  life,  and  the  flare  of  tri- 
umph and  conquest,  is  all  this  to  be  dis- 
tinguished, from  the  amazed  soul,  that 
mounts  with  each  rosy  ray,  and  swells  into 
a  paean  of  joy  and  praise? 

Beauty  of  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit  is  beauty 
added  to  beauty.  Here  are  those  fair  wan- 
derers in  the  pathway  to  the  sun.  Hardly 
may  we  overestimate  sensual  beauty,  not 
alone  for  itself,  and  the  gratification  we  re- 
ceive from  it,  but  for  the  reason  that  it  opens 
the  way  to  other  delights.  But  it  is  the  wan- 
derers, after  all,  that  hold  the  compelling 
charm,  and  not  the  path.  Physical  beauty 
may  start  in  motion  those  images  and  phan- 
tasms of  the  mind,  those  trains  of  feeling  and 
fancy,  that  are  more  powerful  than  the  things 
seen  or  heard,  but  never  do  our  hearts  swell 
to  bursting,  never  are  we  so  satiated  with  de- 
light, as  when  directly  fired  by  the  beauty  of 
feeling,  spirit  and  imagination.  A  further 
and  more  delectable  vista  unfolds  before  us; 
successions  of  ideas,  and  troops  and  proces- 
sions of  rare  elusory  beings  that  spring  from 


[    63    ] 

the  inmost  and  more  imperishable  parts  of 
us,  move  on  and  on,  in  fascinating  pilgrimage; 
we  are  caught  in  a  sweet  bewilderment,  and 
rouse  from  it  as  from  a  dream. 

Up  from  and  out  of  the  all-pervading  har- 
mony of  earth,  beauty  rises  like  a  Venus  from 
the  sea.  As  we  may  discern  the  melody,  what- 
ever the  incarnation,  be  it  of  form  or  color,  or 
the  winds  that  blow,  may  we  know  it.  For 
beauty  resolves  itself  into  music,  no  less  of 
eye  than  of  ear.  But  rarely  is  it  the  giving- 
off  and  breathing-forth  of  the  substance  of 
things  which  comprise  the  charm,  but  rather 
the  effluence  that  comes  from  their  bedeck- 
ing, from  that  disposal  and  arrangement 
which  in  itself  is  adornment,  and  the  very 
birth  and  fashioning  of  which  in  our  apprecia- 
tion, evokes  delight.  The  concord  and  our 
attunement,  the  union  in  bright  image  or 
entrancing  sensation,  such  is  the  beautiful. 
In  nature,  this  signal  and  isolated  delight,  is 
found  in  the  grace  and  richness  of  attire 
which  enfolds  alike,  particular  object,  and  the 
scene  of  its  placement.  In  that  beauty  which 
emanates  from  the  seat  and  body  of  our  life, 
yet  again  the  components  seldom  rest  within, 
but  upon  the  surface.    As  in  the  things  of 


[    64    ] 

earth,  it  is  not  that  which  is  beautified  that 
enchants,  but  the  allure  of  the  apparel  and  the 
position  of  it,  the  outward  blazonry  and  not 
the  supporting  frame,  so  in  the  other  world, 
it  is  not  the  fabric  so  much,  nor  aught  that 
comes  from  it,  which  wakes  the  ineffable 
strain,  but  the  visage  of  presentation,  the  ex- 
quisiteness  of  guise.  Here  may  or  may  not 
be  power,  or  height,  or  depth,  or  any  of  the 
tremendous  verities,  but  here  of  a  surety,  lies 
delight. 

We  have  one  code  for  all.  In  littleness  of 
feeling,  fancy  and  spirit,  as  in  littleness  of 
grass-blade,  or  rose,  or  wave,  or  hill,  and  in 
the  little  effects  that  may  be  compassed  with 
them,  there  can  be  but  the  modicum;  only  in 
the  compelling  passions  and  sentiments,  the 
splendid  flights  of  fancy,  and  the  spirit  that 
exalts,  as  in  the  vast  places,  the  light  of  the 
sun,  and  the  glory  of  the  sky,  may  the  master 
results  be  worked  and  the  ultimate  attained. 
Sadness  may  not  be  depicted  on  a  leaf,  nor 
rapture  on  a  pebble. 

And  as  the  beauty  of  light,  sifting  down  in 
forests,  dancing  on  the  waters,  or  breaking  in 
golden  effulgence  from  black  tempestuous 
cloud,  allures  the  eye  and  opens  wide  the  in- 


Charles  Melville  Dewey 

The  Early  Beams 


[    65    ] 

ner  casements,  so  the  beauty  of  feeling,  fancy 
and  spirit,  brooding  in  their  recesses,  laugh- 
ing out  their  joys,  bursting  forth  in  unre- 
strained power,  captivates  the  heart,  and 
holds  in  spell  each  lesser  ministrant. 


Ill 

THE  MORE  IMPORTANT  QUALITIES 
OF  THE  MATERIALS 

IF  then,  the  material  of  the  landscape 
painter  consists  of  the  shapes  and  colors 
of  earth,  and  his  work  be  to  impress  them 
with  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit,  all  true  and 
beautiful  and  as  part  and  component,  those 
qualities  in  both  nature  and  man,  that  will 
most  strongly  conduce  to  the  highest  attain^ 
ment,  must  be  of  importance.  Casting  about 
the  world,  and  over  the  centuries  that  are 
gone,  prying  into  the  lives  of  dead  artists 
and  viewing  their  performances,  we  cannot 
but  ask.  What  is  it  all  for?  this  tremendous 
struggle,  this  amazing  labor,  and  we  cannot 
otherwise  than  be  convinced,  that  the  thing  that 
at  last  compelled,  that  dominated  life  and  made 
toil  pleasurable,  was  profounder  and  deeper- 
seated,  than  the  mere  desire  to  organize  and 
develop  form  and  color.  Works  of  art,  wrought 
by  the  intellect,  are  but  evidence,  of  the 
mightier  forces  of  our  being.  Like  dark, 
penetrable  mists  in  deep  solitudes,  our  emo- 
tions lie  within  us,  stirred  and  moved  by 
every    questing    air.      Of    the    experiences 


[    67    ] 

of  these,  our  more  indeterminate  selves,  we 
must  speak.  It  is  in  the  endeavor  to  expose 
and  publish  them,  to  place  outside  that  which 
is  within,  more  than  to  imitate  and  after 
our  manner  perfect,  that  which  is  without, 
that  we  seize  upon  form  and  color.  Emotion 
can  but  feel,  and  long  for  utterance,  and  then 
mayhap,  intellect  will  trap  out  with  device 
and  cunning,  that  which  it  can  never  fully 
understand,  and  never  fully  express.  The  stuff 
of  art  is  intangible,  but  the  manufacture  of  it, 
is  matter  of  skill  with  the  substantial.  The  ap- 
proach is  two-fold,  emotional  and  intellectual. 
I  cannot  conceive  of  an  intellectual  art,  but 
only  of  an  intellectual  display  of  it.  The  divina- 
tion, the  bloom,  the  cleaving  joy,  are  substan- 
tive and  purely  emotional;  the  control  and  the 
portrayal,  are  operative  and  largely  intellectual. 
The  way  runs  perilously  close,  and  we  have 
the  emptiness  of  craft,  as  in  other  arts  there 
is  often  naught  but  the  ring  and  clash.  Nor 
would  I  be  classed  with  those  who  languish 
in  emotion,  and  disparage  if  they  do  not  dis- 
dain, workmanship.  To  raise  craft  to  ex- 
pression is  a  task  so  prodigious,  it  is  amaz- 
ing, that  the  very  stress  and  strain  of  it  does 
not  destroy,  more  often  than  would  appear  to 


[    68    ] 

be  the  case,  the  idea  or  feeling  that  is  sought 
to  be  manifested.  Who  but  the  foolhardy 
would  deny,  that  all  riches  whatsoever,  are 
only  fully  valued,  when  they  are  dressed 
and  polished  to  men's  desires.  In  this  ma- 
terial world,  art  must  have  a  beautiful  body, 
as  well  as  a  beautiful  soul,  else  the  soul  may 
never  speak. 

When  one  seeks  for  the  elements  that  will 
best  express  his  emotions,  he  discovers,  that 
as  they  are  of  a  loose  and  flowing  character, 
vehicles  of  a  similar  kind,  will  most  readily 
lend  themselves  to  their  exposal.  The  emo- 
tions, be  they  ever  so  potent,  are  attended  by 
a  vagueness,  a  feeling  of  wandering  in  remote, 
if  familiar  precincts.  The  purer  the  emotion, 
the  more  removed  from  the  sway  of  reason, 
the  less  is  the  consciousness  of  definite  shape 
or  form.  We  drift  from  a  fixed  coast  of  cer- 
tain height  and  contour,  upon  a  shoreless  sea. 
It  can  hardly  be  then,  that  emotion,  being  of 
so  fluid  a  composition,  can  find  its  freest  ex- 
pression, either  within  the  set  inclosures  of 
the  curved  or  angular,  or  along  their  stiff,  if 
rhythmic  course. 

Line,  however  delicate  and  precious,  in- 
evitably leads  to  the  diagram.  Its  prime  func- 


[    69    ] 

tion,  notwithstanding  its  esthetic  power, 
alike  in  art  and  mathematics,  is  to  demon- 
strate and  hold;  but  color,  sensuous  and  ec- 
static, apprehends  without  deduction,  and 
eludes  strict  confines.  By  color  I  do  not 
mean  the  brilliant  and  gorgeous  as  contrasted 
with  the  sombre  and  dull,  but  more  the  value 
of  things,  volume  without  precision,  masses, 
which  of  themselves  engross,  and  not  so 
much  by  intensity  of  hue,  as  by  depth  and 
richness  of  suffusion  of  it,  those  interpenetra- 
tions  of  tone  with  tone  which  appear  to  ab- 
sorb one  another  in  wondrous  wholeness,  like 
notes  in  a  song.  As  the  arts  progress,  as  they 
abandon  the  staidness  and  rigidity  of  the  intel- 
lect, and  cling  to  the  warmer,  if  more  erratic 
emotions,  from  architecture  to  sculpture,  and 
thence  to  painting,  poetry  and  music,  line  is 
subjected  and  color  placed  in  the  ascendant. 
Form  and  color  are  not  so  distinct  and 
separable  as  is  commonly  supposed.  Noth- 
ing, whether  it  be  corporeal  or  incorporeal,  ex- 
ists without  form,  and  form  cannot  exist  with- 
out color.  To  see  at  all,  is  to  behold  both. 
What  we  call  color,  that  is  to  say  hue, 
is  a  quality  of  form,  and  at  all  stages  is  form; 
and  what  we  call  form,  that  is  to  say  shape. 


[    70    ] 

is  a  quality  of  color,  and  at  all  stages  is  color. 
Remove  color  from  shape,  and  the  whole  dis- 
appears; remove  shape  irom  color,  and  all 
vanishes.  In  the  fine  arts  shape  and  color 
are  matter  of  employment,  not  of  different 
substances,  but  of  the  aspects  and  appear- 
ances of  one  comprehensive  thing.  The  re- 
spective qualities  may  be  so  accentuated,  that 
color  will  predominate  and  shape  be  subjected, 
as  with  light  and  air;  or  shape  so  advanced 
that  color  will  be  subdued,  as  with  trees 
stripped  of  foliage,  and  masses  of  rocks.  It 
would  almost  appear  that  color  is  the  living 
element  of  form.  In  physical  man  shape  is 
so  pronounced  that  color  is  secondary,  and  so 
it  is  that  the  primitive  and  older  art,  which 
deals  with  man,  is  largely  dominated  by  line; 
but  in  nature  the  opposite  is  true,  and  hence 
the  newer  art  which  deals  with  nature,  and 
man  as  a  part,  is  largely  dominated  by  color. 
It  cannot  be  maintained,  however,  that  shape 
is  the  more  striking  characteristic  of  the  in- 
ner man,  either  of  his  soul  by  whatever  name, 
or  of  his  general  mental  equipment.  We  are 
more  likely  to  conceive  of  the  soul  as  a  spark 
cast  from  the  central  flame,  and  of  the  mind 
as  a  force  separated  for  a  time  from  the 


[    71    ] 

eternal  power,  iridescent  essences,  color 
aglow,  than  we  are  to  conceive  of  them  as 
round  or  square,  or  oblong.  If  there  be  one 
faculty  of  the  mind  more  formful  than  an- 
other, and  more  susceptible  of  concreteness 
and  shape,  it  is  the  intellect.  Is  there  not 
then,  such  a  close  agreement  between  the 
make  and  composition  of  our  spiritual  and 
emotional  beings  and  the  chromatic  properties 
of  nature,  especially  of  the  deeper  and  ob- 
scurer significances,  that  we  flow  out  more 
freely  and  find  greater  delight,  in  fields  and 
forests  and  oceans  and  skies  of  color,  than  in 
those  of  shape?  As  shape  is  reduced  to  a 
minimum  in  our  spiritual  and  emotional 
selves,  and  so  as  to  be  in  a  practical  sense, 
well-nigh  absent,  it  must  be  that  like  qualities 
in  nature  will  appeal  the  most.  As  like  to 
like,  intellect  pricks  her  ears  at  shape,  widens 
her  searching  eyes,  and  grasps  the  mastery, 
while  spirit  and  emotion  glide  into  color  as 
light  freed  from  garish  day,  fades  into  the 
dim  translucent  depths  of  still  waters. 

In  landscape,  whatever  may  be  the  case 
elsewhere,  it  is  chiaro  oscuro  or  nothing— not 
merely  for  the  values,  but  because  it  is  the 
only  means  of   so  emphasizing  color    that 


[    72    ] 

shape  may  be  adequate,  and  yet  color  para- 
mount. Those  scenes  which  whip  us  into 
attention  and  keen  observation,  are  they  com- 
parable with  others,  where  there  is  no  sense 
of  vision,  no  alertness,  but  only  a  falling 
away  in  forge tfulness  and  feeling?  Who  re- 
members the  shape  of  sunrises  or  of  sunsets, 
or  of  moonlight  on  the  fields,  or  of  the  woods 
in  spring  or  in  autumn,  or  of  distances,  or  of 
starry  nights?  I  know  a  plain,  and  a  deep  fir 
wood,  and  a  desert  beside  the  sea.  They  lie 
one  above  the  other,  the  plain  tipping  to  the 
wood,  the  wood  to  the  desert,  but  more  ab- 
ruptly, and  it  to  the  sea.  Seen  in  the  glare 
of  noon,  or  any  strong  light,  either  in  part  or 
as  a  whole,  they  present  a  pattern  stimulat- 
ing principally  to  the  intellect.  Across  the 
eastern  limits  of  the  plain  run  black  volcanic 
mountains.  The  vast,  bare  expanse  of  upland, 
broken  with  yellowing  groves  of  aspen  and 
poplar,  in  patches  of  burned-up  meadow, 
spreads  away,  glittering  in  places  where  the 
granite  comes  to  the  surface,  but  on  the 
whole,  drab  and  gray.  On  their  slope,  the 
firs  mark  a  strip  of  green,  with  turrets  of  red 
stone  shooting  high  above  the  trees.  Below, 
tangles  of  manzanita  and  dwarf-oak,  burnished 


Albert  L.  Groll 
Harbingers  of  Rain 


jjohO  .J  THaajA 
nft;5I  to  8i9gnid"iBH 


[    73    ] 

like  mirrors,  shine  amid  wildernesses  of  fallen 
rock.  Far  down  and  away  is  the  sweep  of 
the  desert,  gashed  with  dry  water  courses, 
and  of  a  staring  whiteness,  and  then  the  round 
steely  sea.  The  unflecked  sky,  a  cope  of 
pure  blue,  closes  around  with  the  tightness 
and  precision  of  a  lid  screwed  down.  But 
come  among  the  firs.  The  huge  trunks  rise 
in  dusky  luminousness  to  the  twinkling  roof. 
A  green  twilight  pervades  the  open  places, 
darkling  down  the  forest  isles  into  faint 
misty  blues,  and  vanishing  in  walls  of  ap- 
parent black.  Darts  of  light,  warm  and 
vivid,  strike  the  ferns,  the  rich  brown  bark 
of  the  trees,  and  coves  and  nooks  of  shadow, 
where  they  flash  and  are  gone.  A  cluster  of 
pentstemon  in  full  flower,  caught  for  an  in- 
stant, glows  fiery  scarlet.  Slantwise,  from  a 
break  in  the  roof,  threads  of  yellow  light, 
soft  and  waning  in  the  dimness,  fall  on  a  bank 
of  emerald  green  moss.  Shadowy  capes  and 
promontories,  the  darker  adumbrations  of 
heavier  bough  or  denser  top,  creep  over  the 
ground,  mount  into  the  air,  and  approach  and 
recede  from  the  central  brightness.  The 
green  of  the  fringy  opening  in  the  roof,  the 
green  of  the  trees,  and  of  the  moss,  and  the 


[    74    ] 

brakes  of  fern,  and  of  the  pervading  twilight, 
fuse  and  interweave  into  a  romance  of  greens, 
and  deep  in  all,  with  little  sparkles  coming 
and  going,  and  glints  of  gold,  as  if  stray  hairs 
from  the  sun's  great  mane  were  caught  and 
hanging  there,  gleam  the  pendent  rays.  It  is 
on  the  plain,  when  the  sun  is  gone,  and  on- 
coming night  invests  earth  and  sky,  that  a 
profounder  note  is  struck.  Over  all  that 
sombre  and  solitary  extent,  hovering  close  to 
the  ground,  as  though  sand,  rock  and  scrub 
were  exhaling  it,  lies  a  fateful  purple  haze. 
In  long  undulations  it  darkens  away,  and  far 
off  in  gloomy  shades,  are  phantom  lakes  and 
pools  of  mauve.  The  groves  of  aspen  and 
poplar,  now  half  submerged  in  the  purpureal 
tide,  like  lost  and  foundered  hulks,  rest  on 
their  shores.  An  uneasiness  is  abroad,  por- 
tentious  of  calamity,  and  as  if  at  any  moment 
the  plain  might  rouse  and  lift  a  face  of  utter 
woe.  Although  night  is  in  the  sky,  there  is 
no  starry  brilliance  there.  From  the  black 
desert  mountains,  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
arc,  sweep  leaden  clouds,  with  wisps  of  darker 
hue,  wind  torn  and  ragged,  passing  beneath 
them.  A  pale  amber  light  from  towering 
vapors  in  the  west,  a  light  so  wan  and  hag- 


\ 


[    75    ] 

gard  as  to  seem  the  disembodied  spirit  of 
light,  falters  and  swoons  away  in  the  wind 
blown  rack,  and  the  cavernous  deep  below. 
The  world  is  stark  and  cold.  A  few  hours 
later,  from  the  desert  shore,  lift  your  eyes  to 
the  east.  Up  an  incline  of  shadow  you  gaze 
into  a  lustrous  dome.  The  sand  dunes  roll 
from  your  feet  into  fields  of  blue;  the  steep 
ascent  of  manzanita  and  fir  and  rocky  pin- 
nacles, now  a  bulwark  of  darker  blues,  and 
violets  soft  as  clouds,  with  long  filmy  alleys 
where  the  canyons  wind,  looms  unnaturally 
high;  beyond,  over  the  invisible  plain,  a  flood 
of  opaline  light,  mellow  and  smoky  like  in- 
cense, fills  the  sky,  with  the  tops  of  the  moun- 
tains just  discernible,  and  above,  the  dwin- 
dling moon.  Silence  broods  upon  the  night, 
and  there  is  the  peace  of  deep  repose.  And 
then,  from  the  highest  pinnacle  in  the  firs, 
with  sweep  over  plain,  and  wood,  and  desert, 
and  sea,  behold  the  dawn.  Like  a  resurrec- 
tion it  comes,  glad  and  buoyant,  and  with 
swiftness  and  might,  launching  beams  into 
the  zenith,  even  among  the  stars,  driving 
darkness  from  the  plain  as  with  lashes,  hurl- 
ing spears  among  the  firs,  dashing  like  a  red 
host  upon  the  turrets  and  pinnacles,  striking 


[    76    ] 

with  flights  of  arrows  the  last  retreating 
shadows  on  the  desert,  and  thence  out  upon 
the  eager,  expectant  sea.  All  color,  living, 
creative,  adorable  color,  the  outward  seeming 
of  what  would  appear  to  be,  nature's  bound- 
less passion. 

Arts  principally  dependent  on  line  are  for- 
ever dead,  gone  with  the  ages  that  begot 
them.  Those  mighty  and  well-nigh  august 
limners  of  old,  architects,  sculptors  and  design- 
ers, are  foregathered  with  the  poets,  drama- 
tists and  philosophers  of  their  world.  Men 
are  the  same,  everlastingly,  but  they  wheel 
with  the  centuries.  Governments,  religions, 
sciences  are  discarded,  and  subtler  schemes 
devised.  Can  the  wherewith  of  art  which 
charmed  the  Greek  climbing  his  hill  to 
chiselled  temple  and  chiselled  gods,  and  the 
Christian  stretched  before  his  cross,  content 
those  of  the  present  time  who  contemplate 
the  commingling,  not  merely  of  their  dust 
but  of  themselves,  with  the  stars?  Is  it  any 
more  remarkable  or  to  be  wondered  at,  that 
architecture  and  sculpture  should  die  as  fine 
arts,  than  that  paganism  should  die  or  Chris- 
tianity wane?  Ever  we  tend  from  the  deter- 
minate, ever  lean  more  closely  toward  the  ab- 


[    77    ] 

stract.  Arts  incapable  by  reason  of  their  na- 
ture, of  meeting  changed  conditions,  and  of 
expressing  the  new  hfe  and  the  new  vision, 
must  be  thrown  to  the  drift  and  wreckage  of 
the  past.  Despite  that  glorious  spirit  who 
dreamed  in  line  and  sculptured  in  fresco,  and 
caught  from  heaven  for  Roman  eyes  the  pan- 
oply of  a  then  triumphant  faith,  the  day  was 
over  and  night  was  at  hand. 
V  The  ancients,  and  the  moderns  who  sprang 
up  in  the  old  fields  like  grain  long  after  the 
harvest  was  garnered,  instead  of  beholding 
nature  blazing  like  a  jewel,  and  man  moving 
in  the  splendor,  applied  the  well-worn  scale, 
and  saw  angles,  curves  and  pyramids.  They 
looked  from  man  to  nature,  and  not  from 
nature  to  man,  and  as  a  result  saw  detail  of 
line  and  not  mass  of  color.  The  first  attempts 
at  landscape  showed  the  falseness  of  it  all. 
Color  was  reached  through  shape,  whereas  in 
nature,  shape  is  reached  through  color,  and  in 
the  loftier  phases  color  exists  without  sense 
of  it.  By  color  alone  can  the  sensualness  be 
realized  essential  to  art.  Away  with  the  cant 
that  teaches  abhorrence  of  it.  This  world  is 
not  better  nor  more  delightful  to  the  spirit 
than  to  the  flesh.    That  we  might  be  eternally 


[    "78    ] 

fresh  and  virile,  and  daily  quaff  to  the  dregs 
the  richness  of  it,  that  we  might  like  nature 
be  ever  new,  ever  rejuvenated,  ever  at  full 
throb  and  beat!  Through  the  gate  of  the  sen- 
sual leads  the  way  to  paradise.  There  are 
some  who  would  believe  that  the  white  chaste 
lily  is  not  rooted  in  and  does  not  draw  its 
sustenance  from  the  reeking  soil.  The  feeling 
of  the  recent  ages  and  of  this,  and  those  im- 
pending, at  once  keenly  alive  to  the  physical 
and  its  wholesomeness,  and  to  the  abstract 
and  the  subjective,  is  too  subtle  and  elusive 
to  be  sufficiently  incarnated  in  line.  The 
profound  and  intimate  correspondence  be- 
tween soul  and  matter,  the  depth  and  bound- 
lessness that  we  know  is  about  us,  the  vague 
up-merging  of  other  worlds  upon  our  ken- 
sensations  of  these  are  more  fully  released 
and  suggested  by  a  medium,  limitless  as  the 
sea  and  sky,  loose  and  free  as  the  air,  and 
bright  as  the  sun. 

To  feel,  to  imagine,  to  manifest  spirit,  are 
but  the  ordinary  groundwork  of  existence, 
and  in  their  common  apparel,  no  more  to  be 
thought  of  than  the  passing  day.  If  we  are 
to  arrive  at  the  qualities  that  give  them  dis- 
tinction and  pre-eminence,    well-springs    as 


[    79    ] 

deeply  buried  in  obscurity  as  most  origins, 
must  be  looked  into.  Not  color  of  skin,  nor 
form  of  nose,  nor  texture  of  hair,  nor  height 
of  stature,  is  further  to  seek  or  more  indicative, 
than  color,  form,  texture  and  make-up  of  bowl, 
of  weapon,  of  banner  and  of  temple.  Out  of 
dark  forests,  deserts,  fertile  valleys,  mountains, 
plains,  lands  of  gloom  and  sparkling  sea-girt 
isles,  evolved  mythologies,  religions,  com- 
merces, domestic  rites,  and  statecrafts  as  in- 
evitably autochthanous  as  the  minerals  in  the 
earth,  and  the  vegetation  on  its  surface.  He 
who  considers  art  superficial,  of  the  outer 
and  superflous,  and  not  of  the  blood  that  in- 
vigorates and  the  thought  that  dominates, 
has  but  to  survey  and  in  some  degree  com- 
prehend the  past.  If  when  out  of  mists  he 
perceives  this  world,  seaed  and  continented 
and  tremulous  in  light,  and  traces  the  zones 
from  band  to  band,  perceives  the  nations  go- 
ing up  and  down  and  each  growing  unto 
itself  and  putting  on  laws,  practices,  customs, 
fit  and  peculiar,  perceives  cities  here  and 
tents  there,  forests  destroyed  and  fields  plant- 
ed, and  again  forests  untouched  but  roamed 
in  and  habited,  follows  caravans  beyond  the 
curtains  of  the  known  and  sails  in  ships  be- 


[    80    ] 

yond  the  verge,  sallies  out  with  armies,  hears 
the  shouts  of  victory  and  the  moans  of  de- 
feat, witnesses  dynasties  crumbling  and  new 
lords  crowned,  perceives  men  flee  from  their 
families  as  from  the  plague  and  taking  up 
abodes  in  caves  and  desert  places,  or  bowing 
to  the  sun,  or  in  great  chariots  crushing  the 
blood  out  of  victims  like  wine  from  grapes,— 
if  when  the  panorama  moves  before  him, 
from  squalor  to  splendor,  or  it  may  be  in 
squalor  still,  he  may  gauge  the  aspirations 
and  the  follies  that  made  or  undid  each  sev- 
eral throng,  he  may  with  equal  ease  discern 
the  arts,  for  they  will  be  upon  the  peoples 
even  as  the  garments  that  they  wear.  In 
scroll  and  lyre  and  standard  he  may  read. 
And  he  cannot  fail  to  discover  out  of  the 
thick  and  motley  of  it,  how  day  by  day,  and 
how  from  place  to  place,  hand  wrought  for 
mind,  the  one  fashioning  what  the  other  de- 
vised, how  closely  they  accorded  and  twined 
about  each  other,  the  strength  of  one  being 
the  support  of  the  other;  nor  can  he  help  but 
discover  too,  that  that  which  was  esteemed 
the  most,  whether  song  or  sword,  was  ever 
the  most  adorned. 
For  the  reason  that  the  range  of  art  is  the 


BiRGE  Harrison 

Winter 


AUr'AHUJ  .11   d.OAWl 

istniW 


[    81    ] 

range  of  life,  and  the  history  of  it  the  history 
of  mankind,  perspective,  composition  and 
coloring  are  not  more  important  in  its  pro- 
duction, than  are  the  perspective,  composi- 
tion and  coloring,  that  lie  beneath  and  behind 
it,  for  its  understanding.  We  look  too  nar- 
rowly at  a  part,  even  if  it  be  compound  and 
residue  of  all.  Those  generous  and  luminous 
intellects  of  science,  do  not  gather  truths  by 
peeping  through  their  fingers,  nor  are  last- 
ing philosophies  founded  on  segments  and 
extracts.  In  our  enthusiasm  we  are  not  to 
overlook  that  art  is  but  parcel,  and  takes  its 
course  and  conduct  from  the  general  trend; 
and  that  however  lovely  we  may  find  it,  it  is 
but  image  and  shadow  of  deeper  and  wider 
lovelinesses.  As  nature  reared  her  mountains, 
extended  her  plains,  planted  her  forests  and 
blighted  out  her  deserts,  giving  unto  each 
their  peculiar  attributes,  so  with  like  marvel- 
ousness  and  as  inexplicably,  she  endowed  the 
races  doomed  or  privileged  to  dwell  in  them. 
By  one  way  and  another,  in  the  fullness  of 
time,  the  salient  characteristics  assumed  place 
and  power.  Life  and  death,  the  stormy  pas- 
sages, and  the  tranquil  interludes,  were  com- 
mon to  all,  but  they  spelled  the  mysteries 


[    82    ] 

with  foreign  tongues,  saw  with  different  eyes, 
and  heard  with  different  ears.  Like  walled 
gardens  they  grew,  warmed  by  the  same  sun, 
nourished  by  the  same  rain,  but  true  to  their 
seeding;  and  if  by  chance  some  friendly  wind 
brought  a  fragrance  from  afar,  it  was  only  to 
make  more  delightful  the  accustomed  perfume. 
The  mandarin  in  Cathay,  swathed  in  the  web 
he  had  spun  about  himself,  and  the  Judean 
slave,  entangled  in  the  mesh  of  his  own  in- 
vention, were  not  farther  removed  in  distance, 
than  were  their  canons  of  law  and  taste,  and 
the  heavens  that  beckoned  them,  in  character 
and  composition.  From  prayer  to  battle  array 
they  surged  divergent;  and  from  their  under- 
worlds no  song  arose  that  was  not  cadenced 
and  in  tune  with  them. 

What  therefore  do  we  intend  to  express, 
when  we  speak  of  depth  of  feeling,  of  power 
of  imagination,  and  of  purity  of  spirit,  of  the 
superlative,  and  truly  great  and  noble  in  art? 
Depth  in  what  respect,  power  in  what  direc- 
tion, and  purity  to  what  purpose? 

If  we  are  to  arrive  at  the  value  of  means, 
we  must  consider  the  end.  What  are  those 
measuring  cups  that  forever  await  the  filling? 
From   this,   the  furtherest  point  of  time  I 


[    83    ] 

cannot  help  but  see,  like  dimming  stars  in  the 
night,  those  who  too  have  struggled  toward 
the  ultimate  urn,  only  to  lose  the  way.  But 
if  we  be  circumscribed  about,  and  tethered  to 
a  little  plot,  and  shall  never  take  the  view  be- 
yond, we  may  at  least  turn  our  straining  eyes 
toward  where  we  feel  the  dawn  will  break. 
Of  consummations,  certainly  those  we  hold, 
or  believe  that  we  possess,  and  not  those 
which  elude  us,  will  control.  Disguise  it  as 
we  may,  and  the  attempt  were  idle,  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  Jhe  goal  of  every  mortal  is 
some  form  of  pleasure.^  Never  a  war,  nor  a 
peace,  nor  a  religion,  nor  a  government,  nor 
a  power,  nor  a  wealth,  nor  a  learning,  never 
a  thing  high  or  low,  that  did  not  in  some- 
wise pend  upon  it,  and  as  for  love,  it  nestles 
in  its  folds.  Always  we  desire,  and  pleasure 
is  fulfillment.  Beauty  and  truth  came  into 
the  world,  not  separate  and  apart  and  of 
themselves,  but  to  make  more  pleasurable  all 
pleasure-giving  things.  For  the  essential 
principle  of  beauty  is  neither  more  nor  less, 
than  an  accordance  with  our  ideal  of  the  de- 
lightful, and  the  essential  principle  of  artis- 
tic truth,  the  gratification  of  our  notion  of 
verity.    It  could    not  be    that  elements  so 


[    84    ] 

potent  would  long  remain  auxiliary,  and 
times  innumerable,  beauty  and  truth  have 
been  sought  as  ends  of  themselves,  just  as 
religion  and  power  and  wealth  and  learning 
and  love  have  been  sought.  In  this  was 
illusion  and  misconception,  for  beauty  is  al- 
ways of,  or  belonging  to,  something  else, 
never  of  itself  alone;  and  truth  is  but  the 
gauge  and  dimension  of  mightier  things. 

jThe  business  of  this  life  of  necessity  lies 
deeper  than  the  gloss  and  polish  of  it.  They 
injure  art  who  claim  for  it  more  than  a  bright- 
ening of  the  flame.  Surely  the  games  at  Elis 
were  more  to  the  Greeks  that  the  statues  of 
victors,  the  teachings  of  Osiris  more  to  the 
Egyptians,  than  all  the  colossi  and  sphinxes 
that  stare  with  stony  eyes  across  the  eternal 
river.  From  the  morning  of  the  world,  joy 
has  been  more  than  song,  victory  than  the 
pageantry  of  triumph,  religion  than  all  its 
glorious  trappings.  The  pot  was  ever  before 
the  vase,  the  passion  before  the  poem.  The 
origin  of  art  is  use,  and  its  test  is  usableness. 
The  art  that  does  not  further  something  al- 
ready of  value  is  worthless.  In  some  parts  of 
the  world  by  reason  of  climate,  lack  of  nat- 
ural endowment,  or  other  untoward  cause, 


[    85    ] 

art  paused  with  the  physical,  but  in  more 
favored  regions  it  entered  the  altitudes  of  the 
soul.  But  if  its  robes  were  more  celestial,  its 
office  was  the  same.  There  can  be  little  dif- 
ference in  kind  between  the  ornament  on  an 
Etheopian  warrior's  shield,  the  figures  on  an 
Etruscan  tom.b,  and  a  transfiguration  of  the 
Renaissance;  but  merely  the  application  of 
a  use  to  widening  needs.  As  the  subject 
mounts,  as  it  takes  on  preciousness  and  is 
exalted  in  nobler  manner,  as  it  cleaves  more 
into  the  core  and  fibre  of  us,  art  too  spreads 
her  wings  and  takes  her  supremer  flights. 

Subject  is  the  vitalest  thing  in  art.  By  sub- 
ject is  not  meant  the  material  objects  set 
forth,  faces  or  figures,  knickknacks  of  still 
life,  inanities  of  interiors,  heaven  piercing 
mountains  or  loud  resounding  seas,  but  those 
things  upon  which  peoples  feed  and  grow  and 
attain,  those  things  which  to  them,  more  than 
all  else,  are  excellent  and  desirable.  It  lies 
beyond  the  mere  exercise  of  sight,  the  mere 
largeness  or  grandeur  of  treatment,  and  has 
to  do  with  heart-beats  and  agitations  of  soul. 
Better  a  work,  mediocre  in  beauty  and  in 
truth,  on  an  important  subject,  than  a  work 
great  in  beauty  and  in  truth— if  this  may  be— 


[    86    ] 

on  a  trivial  one.  For  of  what  avail  is  beauty, 
of  what  virility  truth,  if  they  be  bound  to  the 
inconsequent?  What  subjects  shall  be  regard- 
ed as  capital  by  a  people,  is  matter  of  ex- 
perience, environment,  temperament,  char- 
acter, and  other  causes,  but  once  ascertained, 
then  depth  of  feeling  is  the  most  penetrating 
sense  of  them,  power  of  imagination  their 
fullest  burgeoning  and  loftiest  carrying  out, 
and  purity  of  spirit,  the  elimination  from  them 
of  all  dross.  ' 

To  contend  that  modern  man  is  further  re- 
moved from  nature  than  his  ancestry,  is  to 
maintain  that  increase  of  knowledge  and 
freer  communion  have  worked  estrangement. 
This,  as  between  men  themselves,  is  fallacy; 
as  between  men  and  nature,  condemnation. 
Of  what  poor  stuff  are  we,  if  having  so  mighty 
a  theme,  we  progress  but  to  forsake  and  dis- 
dain? It  may  be,  that  the  disturbed  and  puz- 
zled Thales,  and  the  groping  giants  of  follow- 
ing times,  in  their  search  for  that  essence 
out  of  which  is  all  things,  felt  the  force  and 
majesty  of  truths  they  could  not  unravel;  but 
always  they  looked,  as  from  a  vantage  upon  a 
spectacle.  Fire,  water,  air,  were  about  them, 
even  of  their  composition,  and  of  what  they 


[    87    ] 

called  "soul";  but  there  was  no  thought  of 
passage  of  the  elements  in  them  to  the  outer 
elements,  no  thought  of  the  fusing,  or  distilling 
or  dissolving  of  themselves  in  life,  into  and 
with  the  mother  flame,  or  the  universal  sea, 
or  the  never-ending  air;  but  an  isolation  was 
preserved,— of  like  within  like— an  inviolate 
inner  presence.  As  exact  knowledge  grew 
and  beacon-like  flashed  higher,  and  it  became 
apparent,  that  laws  were  not  less  compre- 
hensive than  immutable,  it  was  not  past  be- 
lief, that  men  as  well  as  star  dust  swirled  in 
indissoluble  oneness.  The  emotions  in  their 
dim  and  flickering  realm,  not  alone  perceived 
the  brightening  central  glow  and  in  the 
spreading  radius,  wandered  into  deeper  and 
remoter  shadows,  but  long  before  the  intel- 
lect would  award  it,  found  true  relationship 
in  what  before  had  been  regarded  as  only  a 
sameness.  How  delightful  must  have  been 
those  first  wild,  shy  venturings,  those  recon- 
noissances,  amid  scenes  that  had  once  been 
strange,  but  which  now  took  on  a  singular 
consanguinity?  For  long  we  have  known  that 
this  body  of  ours  is  more  than  a  swaddle, 
that  however  fleeting  our  stay,  it  is  more 
than  an  abode;  but  where  about  us  shall  we 


[    88    ] 

draw  the  circle,  even  to  this  day,  and  declare: 
this  is  I,  and  this  is  not  I?  Not  that  heart  or 
mood,  or  any  of  the  identities  of  us,  is  aught 
but  our  own;  but  as  they  find  lodgment  in 
the  body,  and  partake  of  their  habitation,  and 
it  is  nature's  and  as  much  so  as  any  part  of 
her,  what  then  in  reality  is  the  diameter  and 
where  the  circumference  of  us?  Are  we  like 
the  rocks,  crusted  about  and  inescapably  con- 
fined, or  like  suns  shooting  their  rays  through 
a  universe?  Is  there  not  a  transmigration, 
temporary  as  are  all  our  goings,  a  transmigra- 
tion not  of  death  but  of  life,  a  moving  forth 
of  us  outside  of  set  bounds,  so  that  in  truth 
we  are  citizens  of  nature's  world,  and  not  of 
one  principality,  and  too,  that  the  particular 
qualities  which  give  us  a  constitution  and  pro- 
claim us  peculiar  to  ourselves,  are  never  lost, 
but  remain  to  the  end  significant  of  us,  and 
not  of  the  place  where  we  may  be?  The  recog- 
nition, that  nature  now,  in  this  our  daily  life, 
is  not  external;  that  mountain,  sea  and  sky 
are  not  now  severed  from  us  by  an  impassable 
barrier;  that  everything  whatsoever  is  bound 
to  us  and  we  to  it,  with  living  cords,  what- 
ever we  may  return  to,  or  be,  or  become 
after  death,  or  were  before  our  birth,  and 


[    89    ] 

that  wherever  intellect  may  soar  or  emotion 
pervade,  there  are  we  in  the  fullness  and 
power  of  individuality,  is  something  not  con- 
ceived of,  or  if  conceived  not  allowed,  by  the 
older  dogmatists,  whether  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean's shores  or  Asia's  desert  plains. 

Not  that  landscape  is  new,  an  improvisa- 
tion of  these  latter  days.  The  subject  of  it 
is  as  old  as  humanity.  He  who  wrote  of  a 
world  in  making,  holds  before  our  eyes,  not  only 
a  firmament  shot  with  lights,  oceans  in  their 
mists,  and  earth  mantling  with  verdure,  but 
also  something  incomparably  more  excellent: 

"And  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon 
the  face  of  the  waters." 

They  too,  who  heard  the  morning  stars 
sing  together,  and  the  heavens  and  the  moun- 
tains break  forth  in  joy,  cast  their  invisible 
selves  into  earth  and  sky  and  swung  with  the 
revolving  spheres.  Have  not  men  always 
lived  outside  of  themselves,  and  found  their 
being,  not  in  a  point,  but  in  the  range  of  their 
comprehension?  Those  millions  who  have 
run  their  span,  hunters,  shepherds,  husband- 
men, mierchants,  soldiers,  scholars,  statesmen, 
all  men,  everywhere,  have  they  not  felt,  be  it 


[    90    ] 

more  or  less,  the  rough  cuffings  and  careless 
maulings  of  nature,  and  her  most  voluptuous 
enticements,  and  at  the  same  time,  and  as  if 
superimposed  upon  the  physical,  terror  or  joy 
or  desolation  or  magnificance,  qualities  which, 
whether  recognized  or  not,  were  indubitably 
human?  If  in  their  peregrinations  they  have 
fallen  upon  certain  attributes  of  matter,  and 
all  unknowing  endowed  and  clothed  them 
with  properties  and  habiliments  of  their  own, 
mistaking  in  this  wise  the  whole,  sureJy  this 
is  evidence,  not  of  lack  of  knowledge  of  the 
existence  of  a  thing,  but  only  of  discernment 
respecting  it.  Hardly  would  it  be  argued 
that  the  law  of  gravitation  is  new,  because 
we  have  lately  come  to  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  it. 

But  how  long  is  the  way,  how  tedious  our 
meanderings!  Who  may  compass  the  arc 
from  dust  to  dust,  from  that  primal  garden, 
to  this  our  garden  of  the  world?  From  our 
earliest  look  into  nature's  eyes,  how  inter- 
minable the  period,  to  a  knowledge  of  her 
heart?  Grass,  flowers,  trees,  spread  their 
roots,  sprang  into  the  light,  and  availed  them- 
selves of  every  richness;  beasts  in  sea  and  on 
land,   took   utmost  measure    of   well-being; 


t    91    ] 

earth,  air  and  sky  knew  completion  with 
creation;  but  such  is  the  way  with  us,  that 
we  come  to  our  own  tardily,  and  from  sheer 
inability  to  assimilate,  are  put  to  make-shifts 
the  most  pitiable.  How  long  was  it  after  the 
impulse  to  sing  before  there  was  a  song  (with 
birds  singing  everywhere),  how  long  after  the 
impulse  to  paint,  before  there  was  a  picture 
(with  every  plain  and  hill  and  wood  hung  with 
them)?  With  what  incalculable  difficulty  does 
a  people  fabricate,  with  what  labor  deliver 
themselves;  and  once  they  have  an  art,  how 
prodigious  are  the  loads  they  heap  upon 
it,  and  through  what  diverse  ways  do  they 
drive  it?  Arts,  one  and  all,  are  but  divaga- 
tions of  the  ancient  stem  of  words.  In  words 
man  first  fared  outward,  with  them  first  came 
to  grip  with  the  finite.  His  most  intimate  coin- 
age, they  were  currency  in  every  commerce.  In 
them  he  clothed  the  Pleiades,  and  with  them 
paid  his  rent.  Here,  statue,  picture  and 
music  found  vesture  before  there  was  thought 
of  stone,  or  brush  or  instrument,  and  from 
the  common  motherhood  inherited  common 
strains.  Sculpture  was  transmutation  into  con- 
creter  shape,  painting  into  that  same  shape 
with  color  more  pronounced,  and  music  into 


[    92    ] 

both  shape  and  color,  and  measured  sound. 
But  these  things  were  more  than  words: 
a  language,  they  were  new-voiced;  fruits,  they 
were  transcendent.  They  were  a  laying  hold 
and  taking  up  of  actual  shapes,  colors  and 
sounds  in  Heu  of  indicia;  chords  that  trem- 
bled, where  the  old  were  inarticulate  or  mute. 
As  with  leading  strings  nature  was  drawing 
us  closer  to  her.  From  image  in  clay,  to 
that  of  wood,  stone,  bronze,  marble,  from  de- 
sign of  crossed  sticks  to  delineation  in  line 
and  color,  from  rude  sound  to  rhythm  and 
melody,  in  it  all  we  were  accepting  the  in- 
vitation to  come  forth  of  ourselves,  and  join 
the  universal  throng.  But  the  way  was  be- 
set and  encompassed  about.  Meanings  were 
to  be  arrived  at  and  placed  in  becoming  ap- 
parel. There  was  none  to  remember  the 
fashioning  of  words,  nor  how  they  came  to 
their  attributions.  Thought  and  word  ap- 
peared twinborn,  when  they  were  centuries 
apart.  It  was  all  very  well  for  the  poet  to 
sing  and  send  out  his  words  like  doves  to 
their  homing,  but  who  was  there  to  put  love 
in  a  look,  or  hate  in  a  gesture,  to  tie  senti- 
ment to  a  smile  or  fix  mood  on  a  brow?  And 
then,  after  some  fair  command,  came  a  time 


[    93    ] 

as  amazing  as  any  in  the  evolution  of  art. 
With  a  poetry  like  some  bright  spirit  greeting 
the  dawn,  or  flitting  down  forest  isles, 
or  riding  the  storm,  or  venturing  into  those 
dim  and  melancholy  tracts  where  night  holds 
sway;  with  a  painting  raised  to  such  perfec- 
tion, that  emotion  was  free  as  an  angel  in  its 
flight,  man  set  himself  amidst  accessories, 
stiff,  foreign  and  removed.  In  those  pictures 
where  hill  or  lake  or  grotto  was  to  be  found, 
as  with  a  knife  you  might  separate  the  living 
figure  from  the  dead  nature.  That  man  in 
poetry,  should  course  through  nature's  veins, 
that  he  should  so  depict  his  carnal  frame  that 
soul  reached  soul,  and  at  the  same  time,  and 
for  so  long  a  stretch,  surround  himself  with 
the  strange  and  alien  apparitions  that  back 
and  sometimes  fill  the  older  pictures,  is  not 
less  matter  of  wonderment,  than  mortifica- 
tion. But  so  it  is;  we  approach,  only  to  fal- 
ter at  the  door. 

For  the  western  world  the  door  opened 
full  on  the  Adriatic.  In  that  islanded  city, 
poised  between  sea  and  sky,  wedded  none  the 
less  securely  to  heaven  because  in  love  with 
earth,  in  that  city  where  lagoon,  palace  and 
cloud  were  invested  with  an  atmosphere  ten- 


[    94    ] 

der  and  sensuous  as  mother-of-pearl,  and  as 
ethereal  as  the  blues  of  star  heraldings,  in 
that  city  of  wealth  of  living,  and  from  whose 
every  window  enchantment  piled  on  enchant- 
ment, where  magnificence  of  color  overwhelm- 
ed form,  and  emotion  swelled  in  mastery,  where 
the  whole  splendid  scheme  was  of  a  piece, 
and  abstract  and  concrete,  thought  and  act- 
uality, blended  and  interfused  one  with  the 
other,  graphic  landscape,  as  we  understand 
it,  first  came  into  being. 

We  have  to  consider  then,  the  way  we  have 
come,  the  valleys  we  have  tarried  in,  and  the 
rough  hills  we  have  climbed,  for  more  than  the 
artist  is  required  for  art.  They  who  argue  that 
subject  is  of  little  consequence,  and  manner 
more  than  component,  appear  to  forget  the 
place  of  art.  As  art  never  has  ruled  the  world, 
but  like  some  joyous  captive  followed  the  con- 
queror, scarcely  may  it  create  or  ordain  subjects 
of  its  own.  Life  is  the  sower  and  the  reaper, 
and  art  but  a  helper  at  the  harvest.  Is  it  to  be 
believed  that  men,  aside  from  the  struggle  for 
preferment  and  subsistence,  benighted  as  to 
their  past,  enamored  of  the  present,  and  tor- 
mented over  the  future,  looking  covetously  here 
and  longingly  there,  have  inclination  for  aught 


[    95    ] 

but  that  which  nearly  concerns  them?  will 
place  value  on  that  which  will  not  purchase 
entrance  into  houses  of  desire?  Who  sets  the 
pace  but  the  runners,  and  the  prize,  who 
dictates  that?  Peoples  proclaim  subjects;  the 
arts  but  illustrate  and  adorn  them.  We  are 
the  children  of  many  fathers,  the  heritors  of 
fortunes  innumerable.  We  reach  into  the 
past  like  a  stream  into  the  mountains,  made 
of  a  thousand  springs.  For  us  are  the  poets 
and  prophets  of  Israel;  the  round-limbed 
Greek  with  soil  of  earth  in  his  hands,  and 
divinity  in  his  eyes;  the  isolated  and  gloomy 
Egyptian,  deifying  a  beetle  and  comrading 
with  death;  Gotama  under  the  shade  of  a  tree, 
and  Christ  in  a  manger,  Nirwana  and  life 
everlasting;  the  fetishism  of  the  Etruscan,  the 
sunworship  of  the  Persian,  the  lasciviousness 
of  the  Mohammedan,  and  the  asceticism  of 
the  hermits  and  cenobites  of  the  Thebaid;  the 
sottish  grounding  and  blind  credulity  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  the  return  of  the  Renais- 
sance, glad  and  glorious,  like  a  spring  after 
many  winters;  for  us  all  the  voices  of  long 
perished  multitudes,  the  ornamentations  that 
like  lamps  brightened  and  eased  the  path, 
the  lovely  twilights  of  spirit  that  still  glow 


[    96    ] 

about  us,  and  the  wonderments  of  this  world. 
Out  of  the  abundance,  in  part  freely  and  in 
part  whether   we  would  or  not,    we    have 
chosen;    out  of    confusion    and    contrariety 
shaped  our  creed.  In  love  with  earth  as  never 
before,  floating  out  upon  it  and  losing  our- 
selves as  clouds  are  lost  in  the  sky,  growing 
out  of  rocks  and  loam  with  trees,  and  with 
them  mouldering  back  again,   leaping  with 
the  sunbeams  and  vanishing  with  them,  glid- 
ing down  streams  to  unfathomed  gulfs,  im- 
mersing in  them  and  by  them  absorbed,  peer- 
ing into  caverns  fearsome  and  terrible,  and 
coalescing  with  the  darkness,  we  still  and  at 
the  same  time  with  it  all,  carry  in  our  breasts 
the  radiant  hope,  that  while  we  are  creatures 
of  time,  we  are  also,  "nurslings  of  immortal- 
ity."    Many  natures  have  but  magnified  Her, 
many  gods  but  glorified  Him;  by  this  we 
swear;    but  although  we  have  merged  with 
land  and  water,  and  claim  kinship  with  the 
Almighty,  in  sober  reality,  the  essence  that 
is  you  and  me,  will  it  pass  like  the  flame  that  is 
blown?    Our  place    here,  and   whither  and 
what?  this  bright  fair  wood  of  throstle  and 
brook,  and  those  perilous  ultimate  seas?  Our 
lips  are  still  praying,  our  eyes  still  searching, 


Ernest  Lawson 
The  Further  Heights 


fhAi 


i 


[    97    ] 

as  lips  and  eyes  have  always  prayed  and 
searched.  Closer  to  the  heart,  are  the  throbs 
less  inscrutable?  full  length  on  earth  are  the 
trembles  less  mysterious?  Are  not  our  pro- 
founder  thoughts  as  of  old,  differing  most 
between  now  and  then,  in  a  falling  away  of 
overweeningness,  and  a  recognition  of  wider 
brotherhood?  In  the  midst  of  ocean,  in  the 
broad  and  starry  sky,  in  the  light  of  the  sun, 
the  uplift  of  mountains  and  the  sweep  of 
plains,  we  have  discovered  ourselves,  found 
likenesses,  not  of  feature  or  stature,  but  of 
properties  and  constituents.  In  space  and 
color  it  is  possible  to  find  keen  delightfulness 
of  existence,  a  satisfaction  of  our  inordinate 
craving,  and  an  approach  to  the  insoluble. 
We  look,  not  on  a  man,  nor  set  of  men, 
isolated  and  confined,  but  with  all  the  eyes 
that  have  ever  opened  in  our  past,  and  upon 
all  that  they  have  ever  seen,  upon  one  strong, 
perpetual,  all-pervading  life,  and  our  so 
strange  part  throughout  it.  The  portrayal, 
in  nature's  garb,  of  what  we  see  and  feel,  is 
landscape.  It  comes  in  a  hundred  ways,  joy, 
peace,  splendor,  desolation,  vastness,  fear, 
mystery,  an  unutterable  vagueness,  silence, 
elegance,  grace,  hope,  adoration,  power,  long- 


[    98    ] 

ing,  ominousness,  and  a  certain  inexorable- 
ness,  sublimity,  aspiration,— the  perturbations, 
strivings  and  exaltations  of  the  individual  in 
touch  with  the  universal  and  omnipotent. 

"0  more  than  Moon! 

Draw  not  up  seas  to  drown  me  in  thy  sphere, 
Weep  me  not  dead  in  thine  arms,  but  forbear, 
To  teach  the  sea  what  it  may  do  too  soon." 

To  us,  then,  depth  of  feeling  in  landscape 
is  the  lively  realization,  and  as  viewed  in  the 
spectroscope  of  our  peculiar  experience,  of 
nature's  aspects,  meanings  and  imports;  of 
certain  simple  and  fundamental  emotions, 
some  of  which  have  been  mentioned,  and  of 
their  participation  and  relationship  with  them; 
the  furtherest  reaching  beyond  the  frontier 
of  that  country  where  earth  and  sea  and  man, 
appear  as  one;  power  of  imagination  is  the 
fitting  incarnation  of  things  seen  and  unseen, 
the  organization  and  arrangement  of  them, 
the  marshalling  of  the  forces  of  the  two 
worlds,  and  the  driving  of  them  in  full  array 
across  the  sky  of  the  mind;  and  purity  of 
spirit  is  the  delicate  investiture  of  the  clear 
light  or  luminousness,  that  seems  at  once, 
the  soul  of  nature  and  of  man. 


[    99    ] 

But,  notwithstanding  what  has  been  said 
of  the  material  world,  and  of  those  faculties 
of  the  mind  I  have  so  often  referred  to,  and 
the  attendants  that  await  upon  both,  it  is  only 
in  their  proper  combination  that  they  are  of 
moment.  Earth,  air  and  light  are  but  scenes, 
and  feeling,  fancy  and  spirit,  a  company  of 
players.  For  the  performance,  all  must  be 
got  in  place,  perked  up  and  set  in  unison. 
Not  only  is  there  necessity  for  so  arranging 
the  scenes  that  they  will  agree,  one  with  an- 
other, and  of  so  adjusting  the  players  among 
themselves  that  they  shall  harmonize,  but 
there  is  the  necessity,  of  weightier  account, 
of  managing  the  whole  in  such  fashion,  that 
the  peculiarities  of  scenes  and  actors,  while 
singular  enough,  will,  in  a  sense  be  lost  sight 
of,  and  the  entirety  gives  aspects  and  qualities, 
not  attachable  to  any  of  the  consistencies,  but 
belonging  to  the  totality.  Here,  in  the  focus 
of  united  presentment,  the  final  agreement  of 
part  with  part,  and  of  part  with  whole,  lies  the 
unfolding  volume.  Viewed  in  a  cursory  way, 
it  may  seem  that  the  employment  of  the  units 
is  more  matter  of  accomplishment  than  of 
substance,  but  I  do  not  so  regard  it,  for  land- 
scape is  neither  nature  nor  man,  but  a  result 


[  100  ] 

produced  by  their  union.  Were  they  num- 
bered one  and  two  respectively,  we  might 
number  three  something  composed  of  both, 
and  yet  of  a  distinct  individuaHty.  It  was 
only  the  other  day  there  befell  an  occurrence, 
which  so  satisfactorily  expresses  what  is  in 
my  mind,  that  I  can  do  no  better  than  speak 
of  it.  I  sat  on  the  slope  of  a  high  mountain, 
and  at  a  place  of  such  loftiness,  that  the  oaks 
and  pines  grew  together.  Before  me,  miles 
away,  lay  a  barren  valley,  wide  and  long  and 
almost  flat,  broken  with  sand  washes,  and 
variegated  with  clumps  of  mesquite  and  creo- 
sote bush,  and  groves  of  giant  cactus.  On 
my  left,  somewhat  advanced,  and  forming  the 
head  of  the  valley,  a  solitary  peak  towered 
above  the  timber  of  a  cross  range,  and  direct- 
ly in  front  of  me,  across  the  valley,  and  at  a 
great  distance,  range  soared  above  range  and 
peak  above  peak.  At  my  right,  and  west- 
wardly  the  valley  broadened,  and  was  lost  in 
a  mountainous  horizon.  It  was  about  half 
past  eight  of  a  summer  evening,  the  heat  of 
the  day  had  been  intense,  and  no  rain  had 
fallen  for  months.  As  if  by  some  conjuration, 
the  structure  that  was  earth  and  sky  began 
to  lose  its  stability  and  fixed  design,  and  there 


[  101  ] 

did  not  appear  to  be  any  sky  nor  any  earth. 
Apparently  coming  from  nowhere,  for  the 
sun  was  gone,  omnipresent,  fiUing  the  bowl 
before  me,  and  that  other  bowl  above,  dis- 
integrating and  dissolving  the  ranges,  blurring 
out  the  floor  of  the  valley,  and  bringing  down 
in  falling  clouds  of  richness  the  far  reaches 
of  the  sky,  was  a  crimsoned,  wine-tinctured 
candescence,  all  warm  and  permeable  and 
translucent,  a  splendid  roseate  gloom— the 
desert  afterglow.  I  appeared  to  be  in  the 
midst  of  it,  and  far  sunk,  as  in  a  sea.  Into 
those  profound  depths  I  gazed,  rapt  with  a 
mystery  and  beauty  inexplicable;  and  then, 
as  if  no  longer  clogged  and  bound,  and  with 
no  thought,  but  only  a  longing,  I  ventured 
forth  upon,  and  into  that  intangible  bright- 
ness, and  wandered  there,  light  and  free,  ob- 
livious of  all  vexed  and  fretful  things,  and 
with  a  great  joy  throughout  me,  and  ever 
mounting  and  exulting,  like  one, 

"endowed 
With  deathless  life,  that  knows  no  touch  of 
age." 


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